rr 



J3? 



THE 



SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 



BY A LAYMAN. 



N E W-Y ORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
88 CLIFF STREET. 

1845. 



.<k\ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by 

Harper & Brothers, 
In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New- York. 



mmmmmmmmmm 

J Th 



The Library 
of Congress 

washington 



PREFACE. 



The prevalent theory of the redeeming suffer- 
ings affirms that God is impassible, and therefore 
limits the sufferings of Christ to his manhood alone. 
This theory has pervaded Christendom, and stood 
the test of centuries ; yet have we been forced, 
by scriptural proofs, to the conclusion that it is 
founded in error, and that the expiatory agonies 
of our Lord reached not only his humanity, but his 
very Godhead. That our inquiry is of importance, 
no Christian will doubt. We have sought in vain 
for any satisfactory arguments to sustain the prev- 
alent theory. The pulpit, so far as our personal 
experience extends, has been almost silent on the 
theme. We have looked into such theological trea- 
tises as have fallen within our reach. They abound 
in reiterations of the averment, "God is impassible;" 
but, with very few and scanty exceptions, they 
stop short at the threshold of that specious, yet un- 
supported dogma. We have betaken ourselves 
to our Bible. The result of our scriptural inves- 
tigations will appear in these sheets. Perhaps 
our humble essay may elicit from abler minds 
more ample reasons in favour of this ancient and 



IV PREFACE. 

wide-spread theory. If such reasons are drawn 
fresh and pure from the great scriptural reservoir, 
we shall readily become their willing convert. 
We seek not polemic victory ; our sole object is 
the development of truth. 

We shall be obliged often to repeat the sacred 
names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; 
we trust we shall ever do it with becoming awe : 
if, in any instance, we should fail in this paramount 
duty, our contrition will be sincere, as our of- 
fence will have been unintentional. Nor would 
we approach our pious and illustrious opponents, 
dead or living, otherwise than with profound re- 
spect. Opposing what we deem their doctrinal 
error, it is necessary that we should speak with 
freedom and plainness. The cause of truth seems 
to require that our argument should sacrifice to 
false delicacy nothing of its directness. If, in the 
ardour of discussion, we should utter or intimate 
anything which may justly be deemed discourte- 
ous, it will be to us a subject of lasting regret. 

We affix not our name to our unaspiring vol- 
ume. The omission is not from fear of responsi- 
bility. Amenable to the judgment of God, we 
have no unbecoming dread of the judgment of 
men ; but, in very truth, we believe that our hum- 
ble name could add nothing to what may possibly 



PREFACE. V 

be thought the force of our reasoning. Our name 
is unknown to theological lore. Of the writer it 
may justly be said, 

"Along the cool, sequestered vale of life," 
He " kept the noiseless tenour of" his " way." 

Should any future exigency invite the disclosure 
of our name, it will not be withheld. 

Whatever may be the fate of this imperfect and 
brief essay, the writer will retain one consolatory 
source of reflection. His feeble effort, in every 
page and in every sentence, will have sought to 
exalt and magnify the glorious atonement. If 
he errs, his error will consist in the attempt to el- 
evate that most transcendent work of the God- 
head to a point of awful grandeur, towering even 
above its scriptural altitude. 

A2 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Trinity— Fall of Man— Plan of Redemption— Christ suf- 
fered in Divine as well as in Human Nature . . Page 13 

CHAPTER II. 

Prevalent Hypothesis of God's Impassibility considered — 
Supported by Great Names — Correct when applied to In- 
voluntary Suffering — Incorrect when applied to Voluntary 
Suffering — Argument of Bishop Pearson examined . 22 

CHAPTER III. 

Hypothesis of God's Impassibility continued — Not a Self-evi- 
dent Proposition — Incarnation itself implies Suffering — 
Prevalent Hypothesis traced to its Source in early Anti- 
quity — Argument of Athanasius examined ...» 34 

CHAPTER IV. 

Prevalent Theory of Christ's Sufferings limits them to his 
Humanity — Necessary Result of Hypothesis of Divine Im- 
passibility — Theory of the same Antiquity and Prevalence 
as Hypothesis — Object of our Argument stated — Remarks 
of Dr. Chalmers — Remarks of Mr. Harris — Who and what 
Christ was — His Synonymes — Definite Article should have 
been prefixed to Name by Translators — Scriptural Passages 
declarative of Sufferings of Christ 45 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 
Name of Christ — Its Compass and Power — Scriptural Lan- 
guage, how to be construed — Name includes both his Na- 
tures — Any Exceptions are created and explained by the 
Bible — No such Exception intimated in Case of his Suffer- 
ings — Christ's own Declarations, Luke, xxiv., 26, 46 — His 
Name denotes Totality of his united Being, not one of its 
Parts — Union of his two Natures constituted holy Partner- 
ship, to which his Name was given — Name not applicable 
to the exclusive Suffering of the human Partner Page 62 

CHAPTER VI. 

Phrase, the Person of Christ — Means nothing more than sim- 
ple Name, the Christ — No Analogy between Person of 
Christ suffering from Pains of Human Nature and Person 
of ordinary Man suffering from corporeal Pains — Bishop 
Pearson again considered — Bishop Beveridge considered — 
Godhead of Christ suffered actually, not merely by con- 
struction—If Christ suffered only in Humanity, his Suffer- 
ings, taken in reference to his Divine Beatitude, were in- 
conceivably small ... 77 

CHAPTER VII. 
Natures of Christ concurred and participated in all his Say- 
ings and Doings — So in Heaven and on Earth— All his Say- 
ings and Doings were in his Mediatorial Character, requi- 
ring Concurrence and Participation of United Natures — No 
Exception in Article of Suffering — Examples of Concur- 
rence and Participation — Farther Examples in case of Mir- 
acles — Moanings on Cross in united Natures — Mediation 
a Suffering Mediation — Eternal Son " emptied himself" of 
his Beatitude as well as Glory on becoming incarnate 95 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Had there been any Distinction between the two Natures of 
Christ in the Article of Suffering, it would have been indi- 



CONTENTS. IX 

cated in the Bible — Intellectual Character of Paul — Two 
Passages from 1 Peter, declaring that Christ suffered in the 
Flesh, considered and explained — Bishop Pearson again 
examined — Term Flesh, when applied to Christ, designates 
his whole united Being — Term Body, when applied to 
Christ, has the same comprehensive Meaning — So has the 
term Man t . . Page 112 

CHAPTER IX. 
Blood and Death of Christ — Blood, when applied to Christ, 
has a Meaning more comprehensive than its ordinary Im- 
port — It means Totality of Expiatory Sufferings — Christ 
really died — Death reached both his Natures . . . 124 

CHAPTER X. 

Death of the Eternal Son — Scriptural Passages proving it — 
His Exaltation — What was meant by his Death — Not mere 
Physical Death — Why his Sufferings called Death — Visible 
Expiration on Cross, but Representative of his viewless 
Death 135 

CHAPTER XI. 
Death of Eternal Son continued — His Suffering Substitute 
for Spiritual Death of Redeemed — Hence said to have " tas- 
ted Death for every Man"— Consisted in outpouring on him 
of God's Wrath against Sin — Comments on second Chapter 
of Hebrews 151 

CHAPTER XII. 
Death of Eternal Son continued— Acts, iii., 15: Ye "killed 
the Prince of life." 1 Corinthians, ii., 8 : They "crucified 
the Lord of glory." John, x., 14, 15 : "I am the good shep- 
herd." " I lay down my life for the sheep"— The Lamb of 
the fifth Chapter of Revelation— John, iii., 16, 17: "For 
God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son." 
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the 



X CONTENTS. 

world." Romans, viii., 32 : " He that spared not his own 
Son, but delivered him up for us all" .... Page 164 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Dismay and Perturbation of Christ before and during last 
Passion— His Apprehensions and Conduct contrasted with 
Human Martyrs, and Persons not Martyrs— Phenomenon 
not explicable on Supposition that Humanity alone suffered 
— Reasons commonly assigned for his Dismay and Pertur- 
bation, and Fallacy of such Reasons 180 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Calvary — Contrast between Christ and penitent Thief— Geth- 
semane — Speaker and Actor was Christ in both Natures — 
Sufferings there those of Anticipation — Indications of Dis- 
may — It was the Anticipation of Spiritual, not Physical 
Agonies — Thrice-repeated Prayer— Appearance of Angel — 
"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" — What 
the dreaded Cup was 194 

CHAPTER XV. 

Humanity of Christ had not Physical Capacities to endure all 
his Sufferings — Body and Human Soul of Christ differed in 
nothing but Holiness from those of ordinary Men — Body 
can suffer only to limited Extent — So of Human Soul — 
Sufferings of Christ Infinite, or, at least, beyond Mortal 
Endurance — Christ's Physical Capacities not expanded at 
last Passion — If so, he would not have Suffered in our Na- 
ture — Shifts to which Prevalent Theory is put to reconcile 
Extent of Christ's Sufferings with limited Capacities of Hu- 
manity to suffer 211 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Christ's Anticipations of last Passion previous to Night of 
Gethsemane — Luke, xii., 49-51 : " I have a baptism to be 
baptized with" — John, xii., 27, 28 : " Now is my soul troub- 



CONTENTS. XI 

led" — John, xiii., 21 : " He was troubled in spirit" — He- 
brews, v., 7, 8: "When he had offered up prayers and 
supplications with strong crying and tears" — Objection 
answered arising from Divine Prescience — Progress of 
Christ's Anticipations Page 227 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Proofs of Divinity of Christ's Sufferings derived from Old 
Testament — Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah — Isaiah, lxiii. : 
" I have trodden the wine-press alone" — Zechariah, xiii., 
7 : " Awake, sword, against my Shepherd" — Zechariah, 
xii., 10 : "And they shall look upon Me, whom they have 
pierced" * . . 242 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Scriptural Passages ascribing Blessedness to the Deity — If 
they are more than Doxologies, they imply no Incapacity 
to sustain Voluntary Suffering — Divine Beatitude progress- 
ive — "Joy set before" "the Author and Finisher of our 
Faith" — Divine Immutability — Not impugned by our Argu- 
ment 257 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Incarnation no Proof that God the Son had not Capacity to 
suffer without it — Probable Reasons of Incarnation — It 
presented Example of perfect Man — Brought Proofs of 
Gospel home to Senses of Men — Rendered Triumph over 
Satan complete — Affords abiding Memorial of God's Justice 
and Love — Incarnate God, in both his Natures, obeyed the 
Law 272 

CHAPTER XX. 

Objections to Prevalent Theory — Venerable for its Age and 
Prevalence — Miniature of its Outlines — Derogates from 
Simplicity and Fulness of Atonement — Not founded on 
Scripture — Imparts to Bible figurative Meaning — Lowers 



Xll CONTENTS. 

Affection from Godhead of Christ to Manhood— Strength- 
ens Unitarian Error Page 283 

CHAPTER XXL 

Practical Effects of Doctrine of Divinity of Christ's Suffer- 
ings — Deepens Views of Sin — Exalts Justice of God — His 
Love — Magnifies Value of Soul — Affords sure Foundation 
of Christian Confidence — Elevates Views of Atonement 304 

Appendix 317 



THE 



SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 



CHAPTER L 



The Trinity — Fall of Man — Plan of Redemption — Christ suffered 
in Divine as well as in Human Nature. 



That there is a God above us, " all Nature cries 
aloud through all her works." To this voice of 
Nature, Revelation adds her imperative voice from 
heaven, proclaiming the existence and government 
of a wise, gracious, and universal Sovereign. The 
Bible informs us, too, that the Deity whom we 
worship is a triune God. " There are three that 
bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and 
the Holy Ghost, and these three are one." — 1 John, 
v., 7. We quote this passage from the beloved 
disciple with the knowledge that its genuineness 
has been questioned. We believe the passage to 
be authentic ; but, if expunged from the Bible, it 
would subtract only a single grain from the over- 
flowing measure of scriptural proof that there are 
three persons in the Godhead. The Bible also 

B 



14 THE TRINITY. 

teaches us that the Trinity consists of three dis- 
tinct persons ; united, not commingled. 

A celebrated Unitarian preacher now deceased, 
whose simplicity, pathos, and eloquence have sel- 
dom been surpassed, has laid it down as a funda- 
mental objection to the doctrine of the Trinity, that 
the plurality of its persons tends to divide and dis- 
tract devotional love and worship. # But had this 
distinguished man, with feelings so true to nature, 
forgotten, when he uttered the sentiment just sta- 
ted, the blissful days of youth, when his gladdened 
eyes beheld, and his bounding heart leaped forth 
to greet, at the domestic altar, two distinct, yet 
united personages, who both claimed and received 
his undivided and undiminished reverence, and 
gratitude, and love ? Was his filial piety distracted 
by the plurality of its objects ? Did his heart yield 
a less true and fervent homage to his father, be- 
cause the angel form of his mother was hovering 
around him, arrayed in the lovely habiliments of 
her own meekness, and gentleness, and grace? 
Did he find it needful, for the full concentration 
and development of filial devotion, that one of his 
parents should be forever banished from the do- 
mestic hearth, leaving the other in cheerless soli- 
tude ? Did his youthful heart yearn for an amend- 

* Channing's Works, vol. iii., p. 73, 74. Sermon on Ordination 
of Rev. Jared Sparks. 



THE TRINITY. 15 

ment of the laws of Nature, so that each family of 
earth should have, instead of two, but one solitary, 
lonely progenitor ? 

The objection, that the plurality of the persons 
of the Godhead tends to divide and distract devo- 
tional Iovq and worship, has as little foundation in 
nature as it has in truth. If St. Paul, when caught 
up into the third heaven, was permitted to gaze, 
with adoring and melting eyes, on the glory and 
benignity of the Highest, his rapt vision was neither 
divided nor distracted by seeing, on the right-hand 
seat of the celestial throne, that Saviour who had 
died to redeem him, and, on the left-hand seat, 
that Holy Spirit who had regenerated, sanctified, 
and imbued with the balm of comfort his perse- 
cuted and earth-wounded soul. The three who 
" bear record in heaven" are a triple cord of di- 
vine texture, to bind the believing soul faster, and 
yet more fast, to the footstool of its triune God. 

The social principle is a controlling element of 
the visible universe. In the humblest gradations 
of nature we see its prevalence and power. The 
fishes in shoals swim the sea ; the birds in flocks 
skim the air; the cattle in herds graze on the 
plains. The subjects of the vegetable kingdom 
are gregarious. The rose, 



16 THE TRINITY. 

" Born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air," 

is yet encompassed by sister flowers. Even the 
weed of the deserted field is not alone. When 
our attention is recalled to man, we shall find the 
social principle an elemental law of his being. 
Even of him in paradise it was said, by unerring 
lips, " It is not good that man should be alone." 
If we ascend to the next highest grade in the scale 
of being, we may confidently presume that the so- 
cial principle pervades angelic natures. Heaven 
would cease to be heaven to the angels if each 
was secluded in his solitary cell. The strains of 
the lonely harp would become feeble and plaintive, 
though stricken by the hand of a seraph. 

May we not, then, without irreverence, venture 
to presume that the social principle reaches even 
to the Godhead; that he who made man in his 
own image, and after his own likeness, "and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" from 
the redundant fountain of his own ethereal essence, 
retained in himself, in infinite fulness, that social 
element, with whose infusion he has so copiously 
imbued the rational tenants of this lower world, 
and whose sprinklings have pervaded every part 
of its animal and vegetable provinces ? If we may, 
indeed, regard this as a great truth of heaven, 



THE TRINITY. 17 

which mortality may contemplate without profa- 
nation ; if 

" Those thoughts that wander through eternity" 

may sometimes soar, with no unholy flight, to the 
pavilion of the Highest, what a theme of medita- 
tion, vast as the universe, unsatiating as the flow of 
a blessed eternity, may piety derive from dwelling 
on the beatific fellowship, with each other, of the 
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost ! Infi- 
nite wisdom holds high converse w r ith infinite wis- 
dom; infinite holiness commingles with infinite 
holiness ; infinite love takes sweet counsel of infi- 
nite love. 

In that temple of the highest heavens, conse- 
crated as the abode of the Godhead, each of its 
divine persons enjoys blissful and untiring com- 
munion with his two other glorious selves. Into 
this holiest of temples no discrepancy of views, no 
collision of sentiment ever enters. To the most 
perfect unity of action, thought, and feeling, the 
infinite personages, who make it their dwelling- 
place, are impelled by the elemental and immu- 
table laws of their own being. Thus flow on, in 
high and incommunicable blessedness, the suc- 
cessive and cloyless ages of the triune God. It 
must be an iron-hearted theory which would seek 
to banish from the dwelling-place of the Highest 

B 2 



18 THE FALL OF MAN. 

the delights of social and equal intercourse, and to 
consign to lonely solitude the eternity of the Sover- 
eign of the universe. The doctrine of the Trinity 
is, doubtless, above the reach of reason ; but, when 
revealed, reason perceives and approves its fit- 
ness. The infinite Father can find no companion 
among the children of men ; they are worms of 
the dust. Even the hierarchies of heaven are but 
his ministering spirits. He must have dwelt in 
solitary grandeur, but for his holy and rapturous 
communion with his august brethren of the Trin- 
ity. What desolation would pervade the courts 
of heaven, reaching even to the sanctuary of Him 
"that sitteth upon the throne," could a ruthless 
arm of flesh pluck from his right hand and his left 
the beloved fellows of his eternal reign ! 

It is not, however, our object to demonstrate, by 
a regular argument, the doctrine of the Trinity. 
Not that we should think its demonstration diffi- 
cult, with the Bible open before us. But those 
into whose hands these sheets will be likely to fall 
need no confirmation of their faith in this funda- 
mental article of our holy religion. We may, 
then, for the purposes of our argument, adopt it as 
a settled truth, that there are three distinct per- 
sons in the Godhead : the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost; and that these three persons are equal 
in all their infinite attributes and perfections. 



PLAN OF REDEMPTION. 19 

The fall of man was an astounding event in the 
history of the universe. A world, just created in 
all the freshness and loveliness of innocence, and 
pronounced by its Creator to have been " very 
good," was seduced from its allegiance by the 
prince of the powers of the air. The forgiveness 
of this apostacy without satisfaction would have 
violated the fundamental laws of the empire of the 
Godhead. The " angels who kept not their first 
estate," though their voices had so long helped to 
swell the harmony of the heavens ; though they 
had been ministering spirits around the throne of 
the Highest ; though, ere this world sprang out of 
chaos, they had shone as morning stars ; though 
they had been foremost among the shouting sons 
of God, had yet been cast out, and were con- 
fined in everlasting chains of darkness. Had 
rebel man been forgiven without satisfaction, the 
purity of divine justice must have been tarnished 
forever more. 

But how was rebel man, poor and utterly desti- 
tute, to yield satisfaction ? The title to his new 
dominion had been cancelled by sin. If burnt- 
offerings would have sufficed, "the cattle on a 
thousand hills" were no longer his. He stood pol- 
luted, confounded, seemingly abandoned and lost. 
But pity had entered the heart of One, whose di- 
vine compassion was infinite as his omnipotence. 



20 CHRIST SUFFERED IN BOTH NATURES. 

A voice issued forth from the innermost sanctuary 
of the Godhead : " Deliver him from going down 
to the pit ; I have found a ransom." — Job, xxxiii., 
24. The ransom for delinquents, justly doomed 
to eternal suffering, was to be paid in the suffering 
of their great Deliverer. The development of this 
plan of grace, so surprising to the heavens, must 
needs overwhelm with astonishment the dwellers 
upon the earth. It was the mighty movement of 
a God, and all its mysterious and progressive foot- 
steps were to be the footsteps of a God. 

Had it been decreed in the council of the Trin- 
ity that its second person should have suffered in 
the celestial court, at the very footstool of the 
throne of justice, human reason would have had 
no ground to interpose her speculative cavils. 
But infinite wisdom deemed it most fitting that the 
great Deliverer should suffer in the vestments of 
that fallen nature which he had so condescendingly 
and graciously undertaken to redeem ; and that 
the new-made world, which Satan had fondly 
claimed as a permanent province of his own king- 
dom, should become the scene of the glorious tri- 
umphs of the cross. That this great atonement 
was not an illusion, but a solemn reality ; that the 
second person of the Trinity, clothed in the habili- 
ments of flesh, suffered in very truth for the re- 



CHRIST SUFFERED IN BOTH NATURES. 21 

demption of our race in his divine as well as in 
his human nature, it will be the object of these 
pages to establish by scriptural proofs. 



22 HYPOTHESIS OF GOD's IMPASSIBILITY. 



CHAPTER II. 

Prevalent Hypothesis of God's Impassibility considered — Supported 
by Great Names— Correct when applied to Involuntary Suffering — 
Incorrect when applied to Voluntary Suffering — Argument of Bish- 
op Pearson examined. 

We are met at the very threshold of our argu- 
ment with the preliminary objection that the di- 
vine nature is impassible, or, in other words, that 
God cannot suffer. This objection, if true to its 
unlimited extent, is doubtless insuperable ; for if 
the divine nature of Christ is incapable of suffering, 
he must necessarily have suffered in his human 
nature alone. We must, therefore, pause at once 
in our argument until we have explored the found- 
ations of this startling objection, lest we should 
come, unwittingly, into collision with the awful 
attributes of Jehovah. The hypothesis that God 
is impassible is stated broadly by its advocates 
without restriction, qualification, or exception. It 
applies, therefore, as well to voluntary as to in- 
voluntary suffering by either of the persons of the 
glorious Trinity. 

If a dogma pertaining to the viewless attributes 
of the unsearchable Godhead can rest for its sup- 



HYPOTHESIS UPHELD BY GREAT MEN. 23 

port on mere human authority, then the hypothesis 
in question is. indeed, to be regarded as impreg- 
nable. It has stretched itself over Christendom, 
and stood the ordeal of centuries. The Roman 
Catholic Church has adopted it as one of her set- 
tled axioms; the venerable Church of England has 
lent it the names of her Hooker, her Tillotson, her 
Pearson, her Barrow, her Beveridge, her Home, 
and her Horsley ; the Protestant Church of France 
has sanctioned it by the adhesion of her eloquent 
Saurin; the Baptist Church has added the name 
of her no less eloquent Hall ; and the Presbyterian 
Church has crowned it with the accumulated au- 
thority of her Owen, her Charnock, her Edwards, 
her Witherspoon, her Dwight, her Mason, and her 
JEmmons. To these high intellectual dignitaries a 
lengthened, and still lengthening list might be add- 
ed from the dead and the living. 

Against names so distinguished for talents, learn- 
ing, and piety it is with unaffected diffidence that 
we venture to raise the voice of our feeble dissent. 
We should scarcely have entered on the arduous 
undertaking, but from our firm conviction that 
these illustrious personages have endorsed the hy- 
pothesis without that profound attention and dis- 
crimination which has usually marked the move- 
ments of their mighty minds. None of them has, 
to our knowledge, fortified it by a single quotation 



24 OF INVOLUNTARY SUFFERING. 

from the oracles of truth, or devoted to it a single 
page of argument, with the solitary exception of 
Bishop Pearson. The brief remarks of that learn- 
ed prelate will be noticed hereafter. 

The other distinguished fathers, whose revered 
names we have recorded, have generally dismiss- 
ed the hypothesis with a mere passing sentence. 
" God is impassible," or some other expression, of 
almost equal brevity, is the only notice they have 
bestowed on a proposition high as heaven, and 
vast as infinity. So far as we may judge from 
their writings, they received the hypothesis as a 
consecrated relic of antiquity, without pausing to 
inquire whether its materials were celestial or 
earthy. It passed from their hands, bearing no 
marks of ever having been tested by the touch- 
stone of the Bible. 

To the prevalent hypothesis, so far as it relates 
to involuntary or coerced suffering by the Being 
of beings to whom it is applied, we make no ob- 
jection. It would be both irrational and irreverent 
to imagine that the Omnipotent could be forced to 
suffer against his own volition. No hostile darts 
can pierce the thick " bosses of his bucklers." — 
Job, xv., 26. Once, in the history of the universe, 
has the futile experiment been made. The male- 
contents of heaven, a mighty host, aspired to shake 



OF VOLUNTARY SUFFERING. 25 

the throne of the Highest. Their catastrophe has 
engraved on the walls of the celestial city and on 
the vaults of hell a lesson lasting as eternity. 
God's impassibility to coerced suffering is a plain 
and palpable principle of natural religion, resulting 
inevitably from his attributes of infinite knowledge, 
infinite wisdom, and infinite power. 

But as we enter the sphere of voluntary suffer- 
ing, the question assumes a new and very different 
aspect. We are, indeed, still met at the threshold 
with the ever-present hypothesis, " God is impassi- 
ble." But upon what authority do its adherents 
apply their standing axiom to the suffering of one 
of the persons of the Trinity, emanating from his 
own free volition and sovereign choice? They 
hold the affirmative of their hypothesis. The rules 
of evidence, matured and sanctioned by the wis- 
dom of ages, devolve on them the burden of proof. 
To the living alone can we appeal ; and from them 
we solemnly invoke the proof of an hypothesis 
gratuitously advanced, and which commingles it- 
self with the vital elements of Christian faith. We 
affectionately point them to the Bible as the only 
true foundation of a theory seeking to limit the 
omnipotence of the Godhead. The Bible gives 
them no favourable response. From Genesis to 
Revelation, both inclusive, there is not, to our 
knowledge or belief, a passage which intimates, 

C 



26 OF VOLUNTARY SUFFERING. 

directly or indirectly, that one of the persons of 
the Trinity has not physical and moral ability to 
suffer, if his suffering is prompted bv infinite love 
and infinite wisdom. 

Do the advocates of the hypothesis of the divine 
impassibility appeal to the Areopagus of human 
reason, that proud tribunal, to which even the 
heathen gods were said to have referred their 
controversies ? We respectfully, yet confidently, 
meet them there. From none of the physical at- 
tributes of the Deity can human reason legitimately 
draw her bold inference, that one of the persons 
of the Trinity, to whom " all things are possible," 
may not, in the plenitude of his omnipotence, be- 
come the recipient of voluntary suffering. God 
indeed is a Spirit ; but that a spirit can suffer is 
fearfully demonstrated in the history of the uni- 
verse. 

Is the inability of a person of the Trinity to suf- 
fer, when, in his benignant, and wise, and infinite 
discretion he elects to become a Sufferer, to be 
deduced from any of the moral attributes of the 
Deity ? It is indeed a blessed truth, that God will 
not transcend any of the holy elements which con- 
stitute his august being. It is revealed to us that 
he cannot violate the awful sanctity of his truth. 
That he can do no other wrong, is justly to be in- 



OF VOLUNTARY SUFFERING. 27 

ferred from his own blessed oracles. His cause- 
less suffering might, therefore, exceed perhaps 
even the limits of his omnipotence. He is ever 
moved by that benevolence, which forms a ruling 
element of his nature, to elevate, to the highest 
practicable point, the general happiness of the 
universe. Of that universe he is himself the soul ; 
the infinite, to which all creation is but the finite. 
His needless suffering, then, would unspeakably 
subtract from the totality of universal bliss, and 
might thus transcend the immutable limits of his 
moral being. 

But if one of the persons of the Trinity elects 
voluntarily to suffer for some adequate cause ; 
some cause deeply affecting the happiness of the 
universe ; some cause intimately connected with 
the glory of those who sit upon the throne ; some 
cause sanctioned in the conclave of the Highest ; 
some cause worthy to move a God : dare human 
reason interpose her puny veto against the mighty 
resolution? Would reasoning pride scale the 
highest heavens, and, standing at the entrance of 
the divine pavilion, proclaim, in the hearing of as- 
tonished cherubim and seraphim, that Omnipotence 
lacks physical or moral ability to become the will- 
ing recipient of suffering, prompted by its own 
ineffable love, and sanctioned by its own unerring 
wisdom 1 



28 INCARNATION STRANGE AS SUFFERING. 

On the abstract question of the capacity of the 
divine nature to suffer of its own free volition, we 
would not, for ourselves, have ventured gratui- 
tously to speculate. Upon a theme so lofty and so 
sacred, we should have chosen to preserve a pro- 
found and reverent silence. But when we find it, 
as we suppose, recorded in the sacred oracles, that 
the second person of the Godhead actually suffer- 
ed for the redemption of our fallen race ; when 
our credence to that august truth is interdicted 
by the hypothesis, " God is impassible," with a 
voice of power heard, and echoed, and reverber- 
ated along the track of ages ; when that hypothe- 
sis, to retain its own claim to infallibility, must 
change into figures of speech some of the plainest 
declarations of holy writ, it becomes the right 
and the duty even of a private Christian to explore 
respectfully, yet fearlessly, the foundations of a 
dogma deeply fortified, it is true, in human au- 
thority, and hallowed by the lapse of hoary-head- 
ed Time, yet scarcely claiming to repose itself on 
the basis of revelation. 

That the Son of God should have suffered in his 
divine nature for the redemption of man is not 
more startling to human reason than the stupen- 
dous fact of his incarnation. If, at the time of the 
first manifestation of divinity in the flesh, the angel 
of the Lord, instead of announcing the event to 



ARGUMENT OF BISHOP PEARSON. 29 

the humble shepherds of Bethlehem, had appeared 
in the midst of an assemblage of Athenian philoso- 
phers, made up from the schools of Zeno, Aris- 
totle, and Epicurus, proclaiming to them the " good 
tidings of great joy," and benignly expounding the 
spirituality, the ethereal nature, and all the infinite 
attributes of the infant Deity, the incarnation of 
such a being for the remission of mortal sins must 
have seemed " unto the Greeks foolishness." The 
heavenly envoy would have been held "to be a 
setter forth of strange gods." — Acts, xvii., 18. 
Philosophic incredulity would have treated as a 
fable of mythology the mysterious message of 
grace. Peripatetic subtility might boldly have 
sought to scan the spiritual anatomy of the reveal- 
ed God, and dared to pronounce its puny decree, 
that the holy enigma of his incarnation was a 
physical or moral impossibility. Yet, if there is 
demonstration on earth, or truth in heaven, the 
Son of God, the second person of the glorious 
Trinity, did, in very fact, become incarnate for 
the redemption of man. 

We have promised to notice the brief argument 
of Bishop Pearson on the divine impassibility. 
That we may be sure to do him justice, we give 
the substantial parts of his remarks in his own 
words. He says : " The divine nature is of infinite 
and eternal happiness, never to be disturbed by 

C 2 



3Q ARGUMENT OF BISHOP PEARSON. 

the least degree of infelicity, and therefore sub- 
ject to no sense of misery. Wherefore, while we 
profess that the Son of God did suffer for us, we 
must so far explain our assertion as to deny that 
the divine nature of our Saviour suffered ; for, 
seeing the divine nature of the Son is common to 
the Father and the Spirit, if that had been the 
subject of his passion, then must the Father and 
the Spirit have suffered. Wherefore, as we ascribe 
the passion to the Son alone, so must we attribute 
it to that nature which is his alone, that is, the 
human. And then neither the Father nor the 
Spirit appears to suffer, because neither the Father 
nor the Spirit, but the Son alone, is man, and so 
capable of suffering. Whereas, then, the humanity 
of Christ consisteth of a soul and body, these were 
the proper subject of his passion ; nor could he 
suffer anything but in both, or either of these two." 

" Far be it, therefore, from us to think that the 
Deity, which is immutable, could suffer ; which 
only hath immortality, could die. The conjunc- 
tion with humanity could put no imperfection upon 
the divinity, nor can that infinite nature, by any 
external acquisition, be any way changed in its 
intrinsical and essential perfections. If the bright 
rays of the sun are thought to insinuate into the 
most noisome bodies without any pollution of them- 
selves, how can that spiritual essence contract the 



ARGUMENT OF BISHOP PEARSON. 31 

least infirmity by any union with humanity ? We 
must neither harbour so low an estimation of the 
divine nature as to conceive it capable of any 
diminution, nor so mean esteem of the essence of 
the Word as to imagine it subject to the sufferings 
of the flesh he took, nor yet so groundless an esti- 
mation of the great mystery of the incarnation as 
to make the properties of one nature mix in con- 
fusion with another."* 

It will be perceived that Bishop Pearson's first 
ground of argument is, that the divine nature of 
the Son of God being common to the Father and 
the Holy Spirit, if the Son suffered in his divine 
nature, then the Father and the Spirit must have 
suffered. It is an inflexible rule in the science of 
logic that if an argument proves too much, it 
proves nothing. Its proving too much is an infal- 
lible sign that it is intrinsically and radically er- 
roneous. The whole argument is condemned. 
Now the fatal disease of the argument under con- 
sideration is, that it proves too much. It touches 
even the holy incarnation itself. Test the argu- 
ment, by applying it to the incarnation instead of 
the suffering of the Son. The argument, thus ap- 
plied, would stand thus : The divine nature of the 
Son is common to the Father and the Spirit. If, 
therefore, the divine nature of the Son had become 

* Pearson on the Creed, p. 311, 312, and 313. 



32 ARGUMENT OF BISHOP PEARSON. 

incarnate, then must the Father and Spirit have 
become incarnate also. But we learn from the 
Bible that neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit 
became incarnate. The argument, if it proves 
anything, would, therefore, prove that the incarna- 
tion of the blessed Son was but a fiction. Thus 
the corner-stone of our faith would be removed 
from its place. Samson pulled down the temple 
of the Philistines. The learned and pious prelate 
would unwittingly demolish, if his lever was in- 
deed the resistless lever of truth, that holy temple 
"not made with hands," whose glorious walls are 
founded on the incarnation of the Son of God, and 
cemented by his most precious blood. 

The second ground of argument adopted by 
Bishop Pearson is, that the imputation of passibility 
to the divine nature would imply its "imperfec- 
tion" and " infirmity." This would indeed be true, 
if it sought to expose the divine nature to involun- 
tary or coerced suffering. But the supposition 
that one of the persons of the Trinity can suffer 
voluntarily, and for an adequate cause, argues no 
" imperfection" or " infirmity" in the divine nature ; 
on the contrary, it relieves the divine nature from 
the " imperfection" and " infirmity" which the hy- 
pothesis of our opponents would cast upon it. 
Their hypothesis says that neither of the persons 
of the Trinity can in any case suffer. He cannot 



CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM IT. 33 

suffer even from his own spontaneous choice and 
free volition. He cannot suffer, however strongly 
infinite wisdom and infinite love might urge his 
suffering. If the universe was threatened with 
ruin, he could not suffer to save it, for his suffering 
would be interdicted by the fixed and unbending 
laws of his being. And would not such an inca- 
pacity to suffer imply " imperfection" and " infirm- 
ity" in the divine nature? It is our opponents, 
then, and not we, who would attach to the divine 
nature this " imperfection" and " infirmity." It is 
they, and not we, who would thus hamper Om- 
nipotence by fetters made in the forges of earth. 



34 OPINION NO TEST OF TRUTH. 



CHAPTER III. 

Hypothesis of God's Impassibility continued — Not a Self-evident 
Proposition — Incarnation itself implies Suffering— Prevalent Hy- 
pothesis Traced to its Source in early Antiquity — Argument of 
Athanasius examined. 

The hypothesis of God's impassibility to volun- 
tary sufferings is not a self-evident proposition. It 
carries not demonstration on its face ; it proves 
not itself; it requires extraneous confirmation. 
From whence is such confirmation to be derived? 
It is yielded neither by the Bible nor by the de- 
liberative process of sound reasoning. The prev- 
alent hypothesis, then, rests on opinion alone. But 
unsupported opinion, though emanating from the 
wisest and the best, is incompetent, however long 
continued or widely diffused, to sustain a dogma 
claiming the place of a corner-stone in the struc- 
ture of Christian faith. The opinion of one man, 
or of millions, of one age, or of successive ages, 
is not the test of theological truth. Christianity 
should be the last to recognise such test. She 
repudiated it by her own example. Her first 
achievement on earth was her unsparing invasion 
of the empire of ancient and almost unanimous 
opinion. Should she admit that the force of opin- 
ion can impart to religious belief the stamp of 



INCARNATION IMPLIES SUFFERING. 35 

truth, she must, to be consistent, spare the deep- 
seated, and wide-spread, and time-consecrated su- 
perstitions of Africa and of India. An insulated 
opinion on theological tenets, without support, is 
but a cipher. Such unsupported opinion, how- 
ever multiplied, cannot form a unit. 

The incarnation itself is a death-blow to the 
hypothesis of God's impassibility. If the Godhead 
is of necessity impassible, one of its august persons 
could not have become incarnate. The mighty 
Being who, in the fifth verse of the seventeenth 
chapter of John, uttered the prayer, " And now, O 
Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with 
the glory which I had with thee before the world 
was," could have been none other than the sec- 
ond person of the Trinity, clothed, indeed, in flesh. 
The prayer itself demonstrates that the Supplicant 
was not of earth, that he had come down from 
heaven, that he had existed there, and enjoyed the 
intimate fellowship of the Father before the world 
was created. It contains intrinsic evidence that, 
at the time of the prayer, the divine Supplicant 
was sustaining the temporary privation of his glori- 
ous fellowship with the infinite Father, and that 
he longed to have it restored. His prayer breathed 
forth his deep consciousness of the severity of the 
bereavement. It evinced a bereavement which 
had marred for a time his infinite beatitude. His 



36 INCARNATION IMPLIES SUFFERING. 

eclipsed beatitude was not, for the moment, like 
the ineffable beatitude which he had enjoyed be- 
fore his incarnation. This very bereavement is 
but another name for suffering. 

There is a passage in the epistles german to 
that upon which we have been commenting: 
" Who, being in the form of God, thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God : but made himself 
of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a 
servant, and was made in the likeness of men ; 
and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled 
himself, and became obedient unto death, even the 
death of the cross." — Philippians, ii., 6, 7, 8. The 
words in this passage translated "made himself 
of no reputation," should, in justice, have been ren- 
dered, "emptied himself." That is their literal 
meaning. By the substitution of their own lan- 
guage, the translators may have gained something 
in elegance ; they have lost much in strength. 
Our argument prefers the plain Doric of Paul to 
the more fastidious style of his translators. 

The illustrious personage who had "emptied 
himself" was he " who, being in the form of God, 
thought it not robbery to be equal with God." He 
was, beyond peradventure, the second person of 
the Trinity. Of what had he " emptied himself?" 
He had " emptied himself" of the " form of God" 



PRIVATION IS SUFFERING. 37 

for the " form of a servant." He had " emptied 
himself" of his celestial mansion to become a 
houseless wanderer upon the earth. He had 
" emptied himself" of the ministration of angels 
to wash the feet of his betraying and deserting 
disciples. He had " emptied himself" of the glory 
which he had with the Father before the world 
was created. He had "emptied himself" of his 
beatific communion with his august companions 
of the Trinity. And has privation no suffering ? 
Say, ye exiled princes, is there no suffering in pri- 
vation? Say, ye fallen families, whose fortunes 
have taken to themselves wings and flown away, 
is there no suffering in privation ? Declare, ye 
lately bereaved widows, ye newly smitten parents, 
from the depths of your breaking hearts declare, 
is there no suffering in privation ? The very in- 
carnation, then, should have strangled in its cradle 
the earthborn hypothesis, " God is impassible." 

We have taken some little pains to trace the 
prevalent hypothesis to its source in early anti- 
quity. Not that we bow to the authority of the 
judicatory of tradition, verbal or written. We 
recognise but one Csesar in this terrestrial province 
of the great empire of spiritual truth. That im- 
perial, sovereign, infallible arbiter is the Bible. 
To this most august of potentates we reserve the 
privilege of appealing. It is an unalienable priv- 

D 



38 ORIGIN OF THE HYPOTHESIS. 

ilege ; it is the sacred birthright of the Christian, 
guarantied to him by the last will of " the Alpha 
and the Omega," who was dead, and is alive again. 

The prevalent hypothesis we have traced to the 
fourth century. Some brief intimations of the di- 
vine impassibility are, no doubt, to be found 
sparsely scattered in the writings of the earlier 
fathers. There are also in the earlier fathers 
some intimations, as we think, to the contrary. 
The fourth century, if it was not the creator of the 
hypothesis, was at least the first that formally in- 
corporated it into Christian theology. The cor- 
rectness of this position seems to be demonstrated 
by the letter written about the middle of the fourth 
century by Liberius, the pope of Rome, to Atha- 
nasius, bishop of Alexandria, asking his opinion on 
the impassibility of God, and submitting himself to 
the paramount authority of such opinion. The 
letter and the reply of Athanasius are contained 
in an early page of the writings of that distinguish- 
ed bishop. If the Roman pontiff had found plenary 
evidence of the hypothesis in the word of God, he 
would scarcely have appealed, for its authority, to 
the word of man. Had he deemed the hypothesis 
an established article of Christian theology, he 
would not have sought to strengthen the sacred 
and firm-seated column by the frail prop of a pri- 
vate opinion. If he clearly perceived that God 



ATHANASIUS. 39 

had incorporated it into his own holy oracles, the 
head of the Catholic Church would not have sub- 
mitted himself, in so essential an article of faith, 
to the judgment of Athanasius. 

He of the fourth century, who gave " a local 
habitation and a name" to the prevalent hypothe- 
sis, was this same Bishop of Alexandria. That 
Athanasius was a great man, the intelligent reader 
has not to learn from these humble sheets. Though 
then young, he was the master spirit of the Nicene 
Council. He is the man whose name was bor- 
rowed to clothe with immortality that summary 
of faith afterward compiled, and baptized by the 
appellation of " the Athanasian Creed." His spir- 
itual domination has almost equalled, in its extent 
and permanence, the intellectual empire of the il- 
lustrious Stagyrite. It was he of whom the great 
Hooker exclaimed, " The world against Athana- 
sius, and Athanasius against the world !" This 
distinguished theologian wrote a regular and elab- 
orate argument in favour of the hypothesis of 
God's impassibility and the kindred theory of the 
exclusive humanity of Christ's sufferings. 

We have searched out this argument with pro- 
found interest and high-raised expectations. It 
may justly be regarded as the official proclama- 
tion of the fourth century in support of the preva- 



40 ATHANASIAN ARGUMENT. 

lent hypothesis and its lineally-descended theory. 
It was written by him who is generally held to 
have been the great champion of primeval ortho- 
doxy. The general father of Western Christen- 
dom had specially invoked his attention to the im- 
portant subject. We may fairly presume that his 
argument was induced by the promptings of the 
papal letter. The world in every age may there- 
fore confidently regard his exposition as having 
concentrated within its ample limits all that Chris- 
tian antiquity could gather in favour of his doc- 
trine from the freshly-inpsired oracles, or glean 
from the writings of its uninspired, yet learned 
patriarchs. Of this elaborated argument we have 
appended a translation from the original Greek. 
We must beseech the kind reader to pause here, 
and, turning to the Appendix, listen to this orac- 
ular voice of the olden time before he resumes 
the thread of our unaspiring essay.* 

Supposing that the reader has complied with 
the closing request of the last paragraph, he will 
now be prepared to proceed with us in a brief re- 
view of the Athanasian argument, imbodying, as 
it does, more on our subject that can probably 
be found elsewhere in the whole compass of sa- 
cred literature, ancient and modern, if gleaned and 
compacted together. The first ingredient that we 

* See Appendix. 



A TH AN A SI AN ARGUMENT. 41 

justly look for in a theological argument is scrip- 
tural authority. The argument of Athanasius 
scarcely claims such authority for its support ; on 
the contrary, he seemingly wishes to have remo- 
ved out of his way a mass of scriptural verbality, 
to afford an appropriate site for the erection of his 
reasoning edifice. He objects to a literal con- 
struction of scripture ; from thence we infer his 
deep conviction that the language of holy writ, if 
taken according to its plain import, must needs 
have excluded him from access to his building 
site. With more point than courtesy, he signifi- 
cantly intimates that the literal readers of the Bi- 
ble are like " brutes ;" nor does he allow them the 
rank even of " clean beasts" that " ruminate," be- 
cause thev chew not the meditative cud of subtle 
philosophy. The very corner-stone of the Atha- 
nasian hypothesis is thus founded on bold aberra- 
tion from the ostensible signification of scriptural 
language. 

This assumed right of man to amend the dec- 
larations of the Holy Ghost, Athanasius had been 
taught by at least one of his venerated predeces- 
sors. The celebrated Origen, in the tenth book 
of his Stromata, dared to utter the following start- 
ling sentiments, which, if uttered by us, would be 
held impious ; he says, " The source of many evils 
lies in adhering to the carnal or external part of 

D2 



42 ATHANASIAN ARGUMENT. 

scripture. Those who do so shall not attain to 
the kingdom of God. Let us, therefore, seek after 
the spirit and the substantial fruits of the Word, 
which are hidden and mysterious." And again 
he says, " The Scriptures are of little use to those 
who understand them as they are written." 

These sentiments of Origen seem to have been 
adopted by Athanasius. They are fully develop- 
ed in his renowned argument. They form the 
basis of that bold hypothesis which, by its confi- 
dent pretensions and its author's brilliant name, 
seems, for near fifteen centuries, to have dazzled 
the mental vision of the wisest and the best. No- 
thing can be more dangerous to the vital elements 
of Christian faith than this latitudinarian construc- 
tion of the holy oracles. It commingles with the 
inspiration of heaven a controlling infusion of the 
philosophy of earth. It substitutes for the Word 
of the infallible God the fallible word of frail and 
presumptuous man. This latitudinarian interpre- 
tation of the Bible was the great moral disease 
of the first five centuries of the Christian era. 
It converted what should have been its " high 
and palmy state" into one vast receptacle of 
schisms and heresies. We would not do injustice 
to the primitive ages of the Church ; their perse- 
cutions and martyrdoms, so patiently and so nobly 
borne, are deeply engraven on our memory ; the 



ATHANASIAN ARGUMENT. 43 

roll of impartial history unfolds, also, the imper- 
ishable record of their wild phantasies, their bitter 
intestine divisions, their frequent shipwrecks of 
the faith — the legitimate offspring of their reckless 
constructions of the oracles of truth. 

Athanasius says that the Bible is to be constru- 
ed with special reference to what human reason 
deems " fitting to God." We hence conclude that 
the supposed unfitness of suffering to the dignity 
of the Godhead is the prime element of the Atha- 
nasian hypothesis. The syllogism of Athanasius, 
then, stands thus : It is not " fitting to God" to suf- 
fer. The God incarnate did suffer : therefore the 
incarnate God suffered not in his divine nature. 
The correctness of the syllogism turns on the truth 
of its major proposition, viz., the supposed unfitness 
of the divine nature for suffering. But that was 
a point for the decision of the conclave of the Trin- 
ity. In that august tribunal it must have been de- 
cided before the holy incarnation. We purpose 
to show, by scriptural proofs, that it was there 
decided adversely to the decision of the author 
of the prevalent hypothesis. From his philosoph- 
ical syllogism to the inspired volume we bring our 
writ of review. We appeal from Athanasius to 
God. 

In the course of our future argument, we shall 



44 HYPOTHESIS TO BE TESTED BY BIBLE. 

accumulate scriptural passages denoting that, be- 
sides the privations incident to his incarnation, the 
second person of the Trinity did, in very truth, 
suffer in his ethereal essence infinitely, or, at least, 
unimaginably, for the salvation of the world. To 
insert those passages here would be reversing the 
order of our argument. When they come to be 
introduced, if understood by others as we under- 
stand them, we must beg the kind reader to trans- 
plant them, in thought, to this identical place. 
When they shall have been thus transplanted, 
they will carry home to that time-consecrated, 
yet fallacious hypothesis, " God is impassible," 
the work of demolition more surely and demon- 
stratively than could volumes of argument drawn 
from the storehouse of reason. Will not plenary 
proof from scripture, that the divine nature of 
Christ actually participated in his mediatorial suf- 
ferings, convince even reasoning skepticism that 
his divinity had physical and moral capacity to 
suffer? 



PREVALENT THEORY. 45 



CHAPTER IV. 

Prevalent Theory of Christ's Sufferings limits them to his Humanity 
— Necessary Result of Hypothesis of Divine Impassibility — The- 
ory of the same Antiquity and Prevalence as Hypothesis — Object 
of our Argument stated— Remarks of Dr. Chalmers— Remarks of 
Mr. Harris.— Who and what Christ was— His Synonymes — Defi- 
nite Article should have been prefixed to Name by Translators — 
Scriptural Passages declarative of Sufferings of Christ. 

Having, in the preceding chapters, considered 
the preliminary objection arising from the alleged 
impassibility of the divine nature, we may now, it 
is hoped, pursue our inquiry, whether Christ suf- 
fered in his united natures, or in his manhood 
alone, without danger of impugning any of the 
attributes of the Godhead. The capacity of his 
divinity to suffer is not, of itself, proof that it actu- 
ally suffered ; nor can the question of its actual 
sufferance be decided by any mere reasoning pro- 
cess ; it lies beyond the ken of our mental vision : 
the decision of the question rests on scriptural 
proofs. 

The prevalent theory of Christ's sufferings lim- 
its them to his human nature. This theory was 
the sure result of the prevalent hypothesis, that 
God is impassible. If the divine nature was held 
incapable of suffering, then the conclusion must 



46 NECESSARY RESULT OF HYPOTHESIS. 

have been inevitable that his sufferings were con- 
fined to his manhood. The prevalent theory, like 
its parent, was born in early antiquity. It has fol- 
lowed the footsteps of its progenitor, as the shad- 
ow pursues its substance, along the track of near 
fifteen hundred years. Like its parent, it has 
stretched its shade over continents and pervaded 
Christendom. 

Since the maturity of the prevalent hypothesis, 
and its kindred theory, in the fourth century, their 
adherents have- generally aspired to sustain them 
by naked opinions alone, multiplied, indeed, to an 
almost incalculable extent. With the single ex- 
ception of Bishop Pearson, we have met with no 
modern author who has attempted to support them 
by anything that could claim the name of an ar- 
gument. His brief remarks have already been 
partially considered. They will come again un- 
der review in the course of these pages. Wheth- 
er the argument of Athanasius has self-sustaining 
competency to uphold a spiritual world, our read- 
ers, by turning to the Appendix, may judge for 
themselves. 

Whether the redeeming God, as well as the re- 
deeming man, suffered for the salvation of the 
world, is a question which the adherents of the 
prevalent hypothesis and theory have never, to 



OF THE DIVINE IMPASSIBILITY. 47 

our knowledge, examined and fairly discussed on 
its scriptural merits, as a distinct point of theolo- 
gical inquiry. Holding the hypothesis of the di- 
vine impassibility as a self-evident truism, they 
have subjected to its control all scriptural passa- 
ges bearing on the passion of our Lord. Such 
inspired passages as come into seeming collision 
with the hypothesis they regard as Oriental im- 
agery. They understand them as mere meta- 
phors and figures of speech. They deem the dis- 
cussion of them superfluous, if not profane. They 
hold that, as the divine impassibility has become 
an elemental doctrine of the Christian Church, all 
debate upon the weight of scriptural proofs that 
the divinity of Christ bore its share in his expia- 
tory agonies is forever precluded. They debar 
debate by a deep and mandatory call for the pre- 
vious question. They will probably consider the 
invocation of scriptural authorities at this late day 
as a too bold impeachment of the irreversible de- 
cree of hoary-headed Time. 

That Christ suffered in both his natures we be- 
lieve to be a revealed truth of our holy religion. 
Nor is it the least interesting department of inspi- 
red lore. It opens a celestial paradise, rich in 
more choice and lasting fruits than bloomed in the 
terrestrial Eden. " Search the Scriptures" is the 
passport of God to its tree of knowledge. Yet 



48 OBJECT OF OUR ARGUMENT STATED. 

has an earth-formed apparition, clothed in the as- 
sumed vesture of an angel of truth, seemed to 
stand for centuries at its entrance, and, with its 
phantom sword, to interdict all ingress. 

We design, by the blessing of God, to present 
the question relative to the nature and divinity of 
the mediatorial sufferings as a solemn issue to be 
tried, on scriptural evidence, before the inquisition 
of the Christian world. We assume the affirma- 
tive ; we take upon ourselves the burden of show- 
ing that the divinity of Christ participated in his 
sufferings. Among the witnesses to be examined 
will be Isaiah, and Zechariah, and Matthew, and 
Mark, and Luke, and the disciple who leaned on 
the bosom of Jesus, and Stephen, and Paul, and 
Peter. The awful proclamations of the Holy 
Ghost will be invoked. An appeal will be made 
to the affecting declarations of the suffering, dying, 
risen God. We demand an impartial trial. 

We shall address ourselves especially to plain, 
enlightened common sense, well read in holy writ, 
unbiased by deep-rooted theories, unfettered by 
the overbearing predominance of human dogmas, 
content to sit as a little child, and learn the attri- 
butes and demonstrations of the Godhead from 
the oracles of revealed wisdom. The question to 
be tried is less one of doctrine than of fact. The 



ITS REASONABLENESS. 49 

evidence will be simple and practical, little need- 
ing the aid of learned exposition. It will be brought 
fresh from the gospel mint ; it will carry the stamp 
of no human hypothesis ; it will not bear the im- 
age and superscription of an earth-born Csesar ; 
its pure gold will need no purification in the cru- 
cible of science. For the result of the verdict 
we feel no anxiety peculiar to ourselves. We 
seek truth rather than polemic victory. 

If the question between our opponents and our- 
selves was to be tested by the mere reasonable- 
ness of our respective positions, w T e should con- 
fidently expect a decision adverse to the prevalent 
theory. Divine justice could not pardon mortal 
sin without full satisfaction. The exchequer of 
heaven could receive payment in no coin save that 
of suffering. The second person of the Trinity 
became himself the great Paymaster. He paid 
in suffering the debts of the redeemed. Without 
adequate suffering divine justice was not to be ap- 
peased ; without adequate suffering a soul could 
not be saved. The payment was made in the 
face of the universe. The glory of the Highest 
was to be maintained. Heaven was to be satis- 
fied ; hell silenced. The coin was to bear the 
scrutiny of eternity. The redeeming God lacked 
not capacity to suffer. Did he, in Godlike gran- 

E 



50 REASON NOT THE UMPIRE. 

deur, most condescendingly and graciously suffer 
in his own ethereal essence? or did he, himself 
untouched by pain, form a redeeming man, desti- 
ned from his birth to bear, in his frail human na- 
ture, the expiatory anguish required at the exche- 
quer of heaven as the price of a world's salvation? 
To borrow the terms wrought into the major prop- 
osition of the Athanasian syllogism, was it most 
" fitting to God" to save our fallen race by suffer- 
ing in his own divine essence, or to devolve the 
whole burden of the vicarious suffering on his 
created proxy ? Was the coin formed of divine, 
or that composed of human suffering, most ac- 
ceptable at the celestial treasury, in satisfaction 
of the lofty requisitions of outraged and inflexible 
justice ? 

But we will not farther pursue this train of 
thought. It might conduct to irreverent specula- 
tion. It would seem that even human reason, 
unless blinded by the hypothesis of divine impas- 
sibility, must herself conclude, from her own un- 
biased reflections, that, in urging the prevalent 
theory, she is in danger of advocating a dogma 
derogatory to the disinterestedness and dignity of 
the Godhead. The question at issue is not, how- 
ever, to be decided by the mere umpirage of rea- 
son. It depends upon scriptural testimony. Rea- 
son can do nothing more than collect, and arrange, 



OTHERS MAY HAVE WRITTEN. 51 

and present, and weigh the inspired proofs to be 
found in the word of God. 

We have expressed our belief that our oppo- 
nents have left the questions of divine impassibility 
and the exclusive humanity of the mediatorial suf- 
ferings substantially where the Athanasian argu- 
ment left them. We may have been mistaken. 
Chapters, and even volumes, on the subject may 
possibly have appeared in some of the languages 
of earth, dead or living, and yet escaped our cir- 
cumscribed knowledge. But if we are mistaken, 
the error, though it must doubtless impeach our 
theological scholarship, will derogate nothing from 
the strength of our scriptural argument. The in- 
crease of books is almost infinite, multiplying li- 
braries to an extent which casts into the shade the 
Saracen devastation at Alexandria. With all the 
" multitudinous" volumes of theological lore, the 
countless progeny of the unceasing travail of 
eighteen centuries, there is but one created being 
that can claim universal familiarity. That being 
is the w T orm. It alone, of finite things, has bibli- 
othecal ubiquity. The hugest tomes appal it not. 
To fastidiousness of taste it is a stranger. It feeds 
not on the ambrosia of genius alone. Its never- 
satiated appetite loathes not even the offals of po- 
lemical dulness. To rivalship with the worm, in 
compass of research, we dare not aspire. 



52 VIEWS OF DOCTOR CHALMERS. 

Oar argument seeks not shelter under the wing 
of human authority ; yet it is satisfactory to find 
that some few of the best and the wisest have 
thought as we think. It will readily be perceiv- 
ed that the remarks we are about to quote, and 
which first reached our knowledge after these 
sheets were prepared for the press, stand seem- 
ingly opposed to the hypothesis of God's impassi- 
bility, and to the theory that Christ's sufferings 
were confined to his manhood. 

The first quotation is from the illustrious Chal- 
mers. He says : " It is with great satisfaction 
that I now clear my way to a topic the most salu- 
tary, and, I will add, the most sacramental within 
the whole compass of revealed faith; even to the 
love wherewith God so loved the world as to send 
his Son into it to be the propitiation for our sins. 
I fear, my brethren, that there is a certain meta- 
physical notion of the Godhead which blunts our 
feelings of obligation for all the kindness of his 
good-will, for all the tenderness of his mercies. 
There is an academic theology which would di- 
vest him of all sensibility ; which would make of 
him a Being devoid of all emotion and all tender- 
ness ; which concedes to him power, and wisdom, 
and a sort of cold, and clear, and faultless moral- 
ity, but which would denude him of all those fond 
and fatherly regards that so endear an earthly pa- 



VIEWS OF DOCTOR CHALMERS. 53 

rent to the children who have sprung from him. 
It is thus that God hath been presented to the eye 
of our imagination as a sort of cheerless and ab- 
stract Divinity, who has no sympathy with his 
creatures, and who, therefore, can have no re- 
sponding sympathy to him back again. I fear 
that such representations as these have done mis- 
chief in Christianity ; that they have had a con- 
gealing property in them towards that affection 
which is represented the most important, and, in- 
deed, the chief attribute of a religious character, 
even love to God ; and that just because of the 
unloveliness which they throw over the aspect of 
our Father who is in heaven, whereby men are 
led to conceive of him as they would of some 
physical yet tremendous energy, that sitteth aloft 
in a kind of ungainly and unsocial remoteness 
from all the felt and familiar humanities of our 
species. And so it is, we apprehend, that the 
theism of nature and of science has taken unwar- 
rantable freedoms with the theism of the Bible ; at- 
taching a mere figurative sense to all that is spoken 
there of the various affections of the Deity, and 
thus despoiling all the exhibitions which it makes 
of him to our world, of the warmth and power to 
move and to engage, that properly belohg to them. 
It represents God as altogether impassive ; as 
made up of little more than of understanding and 
of power ; as having no part in that system of 

E 2 



54 VIEWS OF DOCTOR CHALMERS. 

emotions which occupies so wide a space in the 
constitution of man, made after his own image 
and according to his own likeness." 

Vp Tp Tp "/P vP 

" The Father sent his Son, for our sake, to the 
humiliation and the agony of a painful sacrifice. 
There is evident stress laid in the Bible on Jesus 
Christ being his only Son, and his only beloved 
Son. This is conceived to enhance the surren- 
der ; to aggravate, as it were, the cost of having 
given up unto the death so near and so dear a rel- 
ative. In that memorable verse where it is rep- 
resented that God so loved the world as to send 
his only begotten Son into it, I bid you mark well 
the emphasis that lies in the so. There was a 
difference, in respect of painful surrender, between 
his giving up another, more distantly, as it were, 
connected with him, and his giving up one who 
stood to him in such close and affecting relation- 
ship. The kin that he hath to Christ is the measure 
of the love that he manifested to the world, in giv- 
ing up Christ as the propitiation for the world's 
sins. What is this to say but that, in this great 
and solemn mystery, the Parent was put to the 
trial of his firmness ? that, in the act of doing so, 
there was a soreness, and a suffering, and a strug- 
gle in the bosom of the Divinity ? that a some- 
thing was felt like that which an earthly father 



VIEWS OF DOCTOR CHALMERS. 55 

feels when he devotes the best and the dearest of 
his family to some high object of patriotism ? 
God, in sparing him not, but in giving him up 
unto the death for us all, sustained a conflict be- 
tween pity for his child and love for that world 
for whom he bowed down his head unto the sac- 
rifice. In pouring out the vials of his wrath on 
the head of his only beloved Son ; in awaking the 
sword of offended justice against his fellow ; in 
laying upon him the whole burden of that propi- 
tiation, by which the law could be magnified and 
its transgressors could be saved ; in holding forth 
on the cross of Christ this blended demonstration 
of his love and his holiness, and thus enduring the 
spectacle of his tears and of his agonies and cries 
till the full atonement was rendered ; and not till 
it was finished did the meek and gentle sufferer 
give up the ghost. At that time, when angels, 
looking down from the high battlements of heaven, 
would have flown to rescue the Son of God from 
the hands of persecutors, think you that God him- 
self was the only unconcerned and unfeeling spec- 
tator ? or that, in consenting to these cruel suffer- 
ings of his Son for the world, he did not make his 
love to that world its strongest and most substan- 
tial testimony ?"* 



* Chalmers's Lectures on Romans, p. 317, 318. Carter's New 
York edition. 



56 VIEWS OF MR. HARRIS. 

The next quotation is from the pen of the dis- 
tinguished Harris, now a living personification of 
talent, learning, eloquence, and piety in the inde- 
pendent Church of England. He says : " And 
how does it enhance our conceptions of the divine 
compassion when we reflect that there is a sense 
in which the sufferings of Christ were the suffer- 
ings of the Father also ! From eternity their di- 
vine subsistence in the unity of the Godhead had 
been only short of identity ; nor could the circum- 
stance of the Saviour's humiliation in the slightest 
degree relax the bonds of this mutual in-being. 
While walking the earth in the form of a servant, 
he could still affirm, ' My Father is in me and I in 
him' — * I and my Father are one.' " 

tK vp tp 3p vf- 

" The love of God, then, invites our adoration, 
not only as it at first sent his only begotten Son ; 
during every moment of the Saviour's sojourn on 
earth that love was repeating its gift, was making 
an infinite sacrifice for sinners ; while every pang 
he endured in the prosecution of his work was the 
infliction of a wound in the very heart of paternal 
love. Who, then, shall venture to speak of the 
appeal which was made to that love, of the trial 
to which that love was put when the blessed Je- 
sus took into his hand the cup of suffering, when 
his capacity for suffering was the only limitation 



VIEWS OF MR. HARRIS. 57 

his sufferings knew ? If it be true that God is al- 
ways in vital sympathetic communication with 
every part of the suffering creation ; that, as the 
sensorium of the universe, he apprehends every 
emotion, and commiserates every thrill of anguish, 
how exquisitely must he have felt the filial appeal, 
when, in the extremity of pain, in the very crisis 
of his agonizing task, the Saviour cried, ' My God ! 
my God ! why hast thou forsaken me V " 

# # # # # 

" What a new and amazing insight, then, does 
it give us into his love for sinners, that it was able 
to bear the stress of that crisis, that it did not 
yield and give way to the incalculable power of 
that appeal ! This is a circumstance which, if I 
may say so, puts into our hands a line, enabling 
us to fathom his love to an infinite depth ; but we 
find it immeasurably deeper still. It invests the 
attractions of the cross with augmented power ; 
for in the sufferings of that scene we behold more 
— if more we are capable of seeing — more even 
than the love of Christ. In every pang which is 
there endured we behold the throes of paternal 
love, the pulsations and tears of infinite compas- 
sion ; more than the creation in travail, the divine 
Creator himself travailing in the greatness of in- 
finite love." # 

* Harris's Great Teacher, p. 10G-1 08. Humphrey's Amherst edit. 



58 THE CHRIST: HIS NAMES. 

The Christ of the Bible was that " Holy Thing," 
born of the Virgin, and conceived by the power 
of the Holy Ghost. He who begat him imparted 
to the infant God the distinctive appellation of the 
Christ. The elements composing this unique and 
august Being were the human nature of his virgin 
mother, corporeal and intellectual, and the ethe- 
real essence of the second person of the Trinity. 
His divine and human natures remained distinct, 
notwithstanding their union. They were united, 
not commingled. The name, the Christ, was not 
an unmeaning appellative ; it was at once com- 
prehensive and descriptive ; pointing significantly 
to its absorbing centre, the mysterious and awful 
union of his manhood and his Godhead. To this 
illustrious personage other names are given in the 
New Testament. He is there called not only 
Christ, but also Jesus, Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, 
the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Word, and 
the Lamb of God. All these appellatives are 
identical in their meaning with the name, the 
Christ. They are but its synonymes. 

Our translators should always have prefixed to 
the name of Christ the definite article. It belong- 
ed there. He was not only Messiah, but the Mes- 
siah ; not only Anointed, but the Anointed ; not 
merely Christ, but the Christ. To the name of 
the Voice that cried in the wilderness they have 



TEXTS SHOWING CHRIST SUFFERED. 59 

almost invariably prefixed the article. In every 
instance but one they have rendered the name, 
not John Baptist, but John the Baptist. This is 
as it should have been. The article gives to the 
name its proper significance and force. The pre- 
fixion of the definite article should no more have 
been omitted in the case of Christ than in that of 
his precursor. The translators have saved a short 
word. It was not true economy. They lost in 
meaning more than they gained in brevity. 

From the numerous scriptural passages declar- 
ative of the sufferings of Christ, we have selected 
the following: "Before I" (Christ) "suffer."— 
Luke, xii., 15. " Ought not Christ to have suffer- 
ed ?"— Luke, xxiv., 26. " Thus it behooved Christ 
to suffer." — Luke, xxiv., 46. God before showed 
"that Christ should suffer." — Acts,iii., 18. "Open- 
ing and alleging that Christ must needs have suf- 
fered." — Acts, xvii., 3. " That Christ should suf- 
fer, and that he should be the first that should rise 
from the dead." — Acts, xxvi., 23. " If so be that 
we suffer with him" (Christ). — Romans, viii., 17. 
" For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for 
lls ." — i Corinthians, v., 7. " For as the suffer- 
ings of Christ abound in us." — 2 Corinthians, i., 5. 
" For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew 
no sin." — 2 Corinthians, v., 21. "And the life 
which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith 



60 TEXTS SHOWING CHRIST SUFFERED. 

of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave him- 
self for me."— Galatians, ii., 20. " Christ hath re- 
deemed us from the curse of the law, being made 
a curse for us."— Galatians, iii., 13. "As Christ 
also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us 
an offering and a sacrifice to God."— Ephesians, 
v., 2. " Even as Christ also loved the Church, 
and gave himself for it." — Ephesians, v., 25. 
" That I may know him, and the power of his 
resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings." 
— Philippians, iii., 10. " To make the Captain of 
their salvation perfect through sufferings."- He- 
brews, ii., 10. " For in that he himself" (Christ) 
" hath suffered, being tempted." — Hebrews, ii., 18. 
" Though he were a Son. yet learned he obedience 
by the things which he suffered."— Hebrews, v., 
8. " For then must he" (Christ) " often have suf- 
fered since the foundation of the world."— He- 
brews, ix., 26. " Wherefore Jesus also, that he 
might sanctify the people with his own blood, 
suffered without the gate." — Hebrews, xiii., 20. 
"When it testified beforehand the sufferings of 
Christ." — 1 Peter, i., 11. "Christ also suffered 
for us, leaving us an example." — 1 Peter, ii., 21. 
" When he" (Christ) " suffered, he threatened not." 
— 1 Peter, ii., 23. " Who his own self bare our 
sins in his own body on the tree." — 1 Peter, ii., 24. 
" For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the 
just for the unjust." — 1 Peter, iii., 18. "Foras- 



TEXTS SHOWING CHRIST SUFFERED. 61 

much, then, as Christ hath suffered for us in the 
flesh." — 1 Peter, iv., 1. "As ye are partakers of 
Christ's sufferings." — 1 Peter, iv., 13. " Who am 
also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of 
Christ."— 1 Peter, v., 1. 

F 



62 NAME OF CHRIST: ITS COMPASS. 



CHAPTER V. 

Name of Christ — Its Compass and Power — Scriptural Language, how 
to be construed — Name includes both his Natures — Any Excep- 
tions are created and explained by the Bible — No such Exception 
intimated in Case of his Sufferings — Christ's own Declarations, 
Luke, xxiv., 26, 46 — His Name denotes Totality of his united Be- 
ing, not one of its Parts — Union of his two Natures constituted 
holy Partnership, to which his Name was given — Name not appli- 
cable to the exclusive Suffering of the human Partner. 

The abounding scriptural declarations of the 
sufferings of Christ, just presented to the reader, 
are general and unqualified, without limit or ex- 
ception. They cover all the consecrated ground 
covered by the name of the Christ. The reader 
has already learned that the name, the Christ, was 
imparted by the Holy Ghost to the infant Jesus, 
to designate his mysterious union of humanity with 
the Godhead. The name was commensurate w T ith 
the infinitude of his united being. The limits and 
power of that redeeming, yet awful name, will be 
the theme of the present chapter. We shall at- 
tempt to show that, when applied by Scripture to 
the mediatorial sacrifice, the name itself, in its dis- 
tinctive and wide-reaching signification, neces- 
sarily imports, ex vi termini, or from its own in- 
trinsic compass and potency, the participation of 
both Christ's natures in his expiatory sufferings. 



WORDS HOW CONSTRUED. 63 

It must constantly be borne in mind, that what 
distinguished Christ from all other beings in the 
universe was his union of the divine and human 
natures. Earth teems with men, and the celes- 
tial throne sustains two other persons of the God- 
head ; but the unique phenomenon of a being, at 
once God and man, was first exhibited in the man- 
ger of Bethlehem, where it received, from the 
Holy Ghost, its distinctive appellation. It cannot 
be denied that the name, the Christ, and each of 
its equivalents, ordinarily includes both his natures. 
It must be admitted that, as a general rule, the 
term can only be. satisfied by its application to his 
two natures unitedly ; that the two natures are its 
natural aliment ; that the name is crippled by con- 
fining it to his humanity alone ; that his two na- 
tures are the divine and human pedestals on which 
this glorious name reposes in all the infinitude of 
its meaning. 

The science of construing words, written and 
spoken, has been matured by the united wisdom 
of centuries. It is the use of words which ele- 
vates man above the brute, and on their just and 
uniform construction depend the stability and 
safety of all the transactions of social life. Of this 
useful science, the most simple, universal, and con- 
trolling axiom is its elemental rule, that words are 
to be construed according to their plain, obvious, 



64 WORDS HOW CONSTRUED. 

and ordinary import. No metaphysical subtilties 
are to make fluctuating the standard of speech. 
On this rule depends the security of deeds, the 
most important documents known in the private 
intercourse of living men ; on this rule rests the 
sanctity of those hallowed bequests which come 
to us as voices from the dead ; even legislative 
enactments lose all their value, and become dan- 
gerous snares when the inviolability of this car- 
dinal rule is wantonly invaded. 

This elemental axiom is, as it were, the human 
palladium of the oracles of revealed truth. That 
document, written by the hand of God to enlighten 
the common mind, should be ever meekly received 
by the children of men, according to the plain, 
obvious, and ordinary meaning of its sacred words. 
Its language is brief, simple, clear ; well suited, if 
left unobscured by construction, to the level of or- 
dinary understandings. Its phraseology was se- 
lected by the Holy Ghost, as best calculated to 
bring home even to the closets of uneducated piety 
the precepts and consolations of inspired wisdom 
in all their purity and force. It is the call of their 
heavenly Father to the lost and wandering sons 
and daughters of humanity. It has all the tender- 
ness, and simplicity, and plainness of the parental 
voice. Unless clouded by human interpretation, 



NAME CHRIST MEANT BOTH NATURES. 65 

it well knows how to wind its way into the inmost 
recesses of the filial heart. 

The words of scripture should be understood 
by us in the same manner as they were calculated 
to be understood by those to whom they were 
originally addressed. We are to receive them 
according to their apparent signification, not to 
hunt after some occult meaning. If they startle 
us by their loftiness of import, we must remember 
that they are the words of the unsearchable God. 
If they are " as high as heaven, 9 ' we have no right 
to drag them rudely down to earth. To pursue 
the imagined spirit of a passage, in opposition to 
its plain letter, is an experiment that man should 
make with fear and trembling. He may, unwit- 
tingly, " add unto," or " take away from" that holy 
book which came down from above. Let him 
beware of the penalties denounced at the close of 
the last chapter of the New Testament — Revela- 
tion, xxii., 18, 19. 

If the scriptural passages declarative of the suf- 
ferings of Christ are taken in their plain, obvious, 
and ordinary sense, they include, beyond perad- 
venture, his divine nature as well as his humanity. 
The name of Christ is used by the inspired wri- 
ters to indicate the length, and breadth, and 
height, and depth of his sufferings ; and that name, 

F 2 



66 FEW INSULATED EXCEPTIONS. 

in its ordinary import, has no limits narrower than 
the whole compass of his united natures. Let a 
man of ordinary understanding, candid and intel- 
ligent, untinged by the unfounded hypothesis of 
God's impassibility, open his Bible ; let him read 
there the oft-repeated, general, and unqualified 
declarations that Christ suffered ; let him call to 
mind the peculiarity of Christ's being, uniting in 
himself the God and the man, and that this union, 
in all the elements of both its natures, is pervaded 
and represented by his distinctive appellation, and 
the inference seems to be inevitable, that he would 
come to the conclusion that the sufferings of Christ 
were as extensive as the import of his holy name. 
It doubtless would not occur to this plain and 
unbiased reader of the Bible that he was at liberty 
to narrow dow r n, by his own fiat, to a particular 
and contracted meaning, declarations and words 
which the Holy Ghost left general and unlimited. 

It is true that a few insulated cases are to be 
found in scripture where words expressive of 
Christ are applied peculiarly to his human nature. 
It is on this ground, as it would seem, that the ad- 
vocates of the prevalent theory seek to bring un- 
der the same category the general and abounding 
scriptural declarations of his sufferings. We might 
reply that, in these few insulated cases, the dis- 
tinctive name of Christ is almost never used ; but 






BIBLE EXPLAINS EXCEPTIONS. 67 

we prefer to place our reply on more general 
grounds. We have, at some pains, ascertained 
the number of times that the name of Christ, in 
some of its forms, appears in the New Testament, 
and find it to be sixteen hundred and twenty-five. 
The insulated cases in which either of his names, 
or its equivalent, is used to designate his human 
nature exclusively cannot exceed one in a hun- 
dred of this number. 

These insulated cases are so rare, in their oc- 
currence and so uncertain in their import as 
scarcely to amount to an exception to the general 
scriptural rule, that the name of Christ denotes 
both of his united natures. And in all these insu- 
lated cases the limitation of his name to his human 
nature is rendered inevitable by intrinsic marks 
on the passages themselves, or by contiguous por- 
tions of holy writ. Take, as a sample, the decla- 
ration of Christ, " My Father is greater than I." — 
John, xiv., 28. The declaration was limited to 
his humanity by our Lord himself, when he said, 
a few chapters before, "I and my Father are 
one." — John, x., 30. Take another sample : " But 
of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the 
angels of heaven, but my Father only." — Mat- 
thew, xxiv., 36. This lack of prescience is neces- 
sarily confined to his human nature by numerous 
other passages of the New Testament, which im- 



68 REASON CANNOT RESTRICT BIBLE. 

ply that, as the second person of the Trinity, his 
omniscient eye scans at a glance the illimitable 
expanse of the future. So that, in these insulated 
cases, it is God, and not man, who limits to the 
humanity of Christ* a name naturally including 
both his natures within its expressive import. 
The Bible itself explains the excepted passages ; 
the Bible still stands its own expositor ; it is not 
human reason that ingrafts the particular limita- 
tion on the general language of holy writ. 
« 
The name, the Christ, when mingled in the ever- 
recurring declarations of his sufferings, is not thus 
limited to his humanity, directly or by implication, 
anywhere in the Word of God. The limitation 
sought to be ingrafted on the declarations of his 
sufferings rests on human, not on divine authority. 
It is the begotten of the unfounded hypothesis, 
" God is impassible." Had that hypothesis never 
been adopted, it is not likely that the prevalent 
theory, confining the sufferings of Christ to his 
human nature, would have found a place in Chris- 
tian theology. 

Human reason has no authority delegated from 
above to restrict, by its own volition, what the 
Bible has left general. The Word of God must 
not be bent to what human reason somewhat ar- 
rogantly terms, when applied to divine things, its 



ONE NATURE INFINITE, ONE FINITE. 69 

own sound discretion. The sound discretion of 
one theorist differs from the sound discretion of 
another theorist. If the Bible is to shape itself to 
the ever-varying phases of what claims to be the 
sound discretion of reason, it must assume more 
forms than the fabled Proteus of heathen mythol- 
ogy ever assumed. The self-styled sound discre- 
tion of human reason has done the Bible more 
harm than it ever suffered from the prince of dark- 
ness. It has brought Christians into collision with 
Christians ; it has broken into fragments what 
should have been the one and indivisible Church 
of the Son of God ; it has rent asunder what the 
Roman soldiery spared, even the seamless vest- 
ment of Christ. 

The impropriety of limiting to his mere human- 
ity the unlimited declarations of scripture indica- 
tive of Christ's sufferings will be more obvious if 
we consider the relative proportions which his 
two natures bore to each other. The one was 
finite, the other was infinite. His humanity was 
not only the inferior nature, but it was, as it were, 
absorbed and lost in the boundless expansion of 
the divine. Would the inspired writers, would 
our Lord himself, then, if intending to have it be- 
lieved that the divinity of Christ had not suffered, 
have used, to express the sufferings of his mere 
terrestrial adjunct, terms applicable to the whole 



70 BOTH NATURES SUFFERED. 

infinitude of his united natures ; and terms, too, 
which are crippled and distorted by a more lim- 
ited application ? They best knew the natures 
and agonies of the Mediator ; and when they used 
the significant term, the Christ, to designate the 
recipient of the expiatory sufferings, they must 
have meant that the Christ, the whole Christ of the 
Bible had suffered. 

When you speak of the visible heavens, in terms 
broad and unlimited, you cannot be supposed to 
have lost sight of the blue expanse and the glori- 
ous sun above you ; and your words, appropriate 
and suited to the whole majestic scene, and to that 
only, should not be narrowed, by mere construc- 
tion, to the frail cloud that specks the skirt of the 
horizon. If these inspired writers, if our Saviour 
himself had intended to declare that the atoning 
sufferings of Christ were confined to his mere 
earthly appendage ; if they had designed to limit 
the generality of their words to so restricted and 
confined a meaning, they would have said so in 
terms, or, at least, by necessary implication. There 
is no self-contracting power in the words indica- 
tive of suffering to draw within creature dimen- 
sions a name framed by the Holy Ghost to include 
within its vast compass not only the finite man, 
but the infinite God. 



Christ's own declarations. 71 

When our Lord, after his resurrection, asserted 
his sufferings interrogatively, " Ought not Christ 
to have suffered?" when, in a subsequent verse 
of the same chapter, he repeated the assertion pos- 
itively, " Thus it behooved Christ to suffer ;" when 
he thus, without restriction, used the very name 
which he had himself adopted to designate his 
united natures, can erring man venture to say that 
by that name he intended to designate one of his 
natures only as the recipient of his suffering, and 
that, too, the inferior one ? — Luke, xxiv., 26, 46. 
The Son of God did not say, interrogatively or 
positively, that Christ ought to have suffered, or 
that it behooved him to suffer in his human nature 
only. It is reasoning pride which seeks virtually 
to interpolate into the sacred texts the omitted 
words, "in his human nature only," by its own 
uninspired interpretation. 

How can worms of the dust presume to limit, 
by such words of addition and restriction, the un- 
limited and unrestricted declarations of the infinite 
Son ; lowering, too, the majesty of the declara- 
tions, as it were, from heaven down to earth ? 
We are bound to give unqualified credence to 
what Christ unqualifiedly uttered. It would ill 
become us to suppose that he spoke unadvisedly. 
He best knew that, while in a subordinate sense 
he was man, he was God in the primary and prin- 



72 HIS NAME INCLUDED BOTH NATURES. 

cipal elements of his being. He perfectly under- 
stood that the name of that God-man, of his own 
glorious self, was Christ. When he used his own 
distinctive name, without restriction or limitation, 
his meaning must have had all the compass which 
that name imports. When he twice declared in 
the same chapter that Christ had suffered, without 
restriction or limitation, he must be understood to 
have included both the natures indicated by the 
name of Christ, and to have affirmed that the 
whole Christ had suffered. 

The distinctive name, the Christ, was the name 
of the totality of his person. It was not given to 
either of his two natures, but to their union ; it 
was the name of the whole, not of its parts. It 
is ordinarily no more used in scripture to signify 
one of his united natures than the name circle is 
used in mathematics to signify one of the seg- 
ments of which it is composed. Whenever the 
term Christ is used in scripture, save in a very 
few insulated cases, scarcely amounting to an ex- 
ception, it was intended to be applied to both his 
natures unitedly. When, therefore, the Bible so 
often declared that Christ suffered, it meant to de- 
clare that he suffered in his united natures. Suf- 
fering in his human nature would have been the 
suffering of the human son of the Virgin ; suffer- 
ing in the divine nature would have been the suf- 



MAN INCLUDES BODY AND SOUL. 73 

fering of the second person of the Trinity ; but in 
neither case would the suffering have been the 
suffering of Christ. 

God formed the first Adam " of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life." The creature thus formed was com- 
pounded of body and soul. To this complex be- 
ing, and to his posterity, the appellation of man 
was given by his Almighty Creator. The name 
pertains not exclusively to his soul or to his body, 
but to their mysterious union. It would be an un- 
intelligible abuse of the name to apply it separate- 
ly either to his corporeal or to his spiritual nature. 
It belongs to the united totality of the man. 

To the second Adam, combining in himself di- 
vinity and humanity, the distinctive appellation of 
Christ was imparted by the Holy Ghost, to desig- 
nate, not one of his united natures singly, but their 
glorious union. The name of Christ was as ex- 
clusively appropriated to his united being as the 
name of man was appropriated to the united body 
and soul of the first Adam. The name of Christ, 
when used without explanation, can no more be 
limited to his human nature than the name of man, 
when used without explanation, can be limited to 
the human body. The few insulated cases where 
the name of Christ is applied, in scripture, to his 

G 



74 INCARNATION Ht>LY PARTNERSHIP. 

manhood alone, have in or about them abundant 
scriptural explanations. Where the Bible has re- 
corded no limiting explanation, we are bound to 
suppose that it intended to affix to the sacred 
name the same plenitude of meaning affixed to it 
by the Holy Ghost when it was originally impart- 
ed to the infant Saviour. The abounding scrip- 
tural declarations of the sufferings of Christ are 
limited to his manhood by no scriptural explana- 
tions. They stand, therefore, clothed in the same 
amplitude of signification that was attached to the 
consecrated name by the Holy Ghost in the man- 
ger of Bethlehem. 

The Bible is wont to express heavenly things 
by earthly similitudes. Sustained by this exam- 
ple, we would venture most reverentially to sug- 
gest that, by the incarnation, the second person 
of the Trinity received into a holy partnership 
with himself the human son of Mary. The union 
had for its object the salvation of a world. To 
that sacred union a distinctive name was given. 
The name of the holy partnership was the Christ. 
It commenced in the womb of the Virgin ; its du- 
ration was to be without end ; its members were 
once wrapped together in the swaddling clothes 
of the manger ; they now occupy the right hand 
throne of heaven. Both retained, in unmingled 
perfection, their own distinct natures ; they differ- 



NAME APPLIED ONLY TO BOTH. 75 

ed infinitely in dignity : the one was a worm of 
the dust; the other was the Lord of Glory. 

According to the prevalent theory, the man, in 
his own distinct nature, suffered, while the God 
remained wholly free from suffering. Now we 
submit it as a clear proposition, that, under this 
theory, the individual and insulated sufferings of 
the terrestrial partner were not the sufferings of 
the holy union ; that they were not distinguishable 
by its partnership appellation ; and that they could 
not, without violating the elemental principles of 
speech, have been called the sufferings of Christ. 
Under the prevalent theory, the holy union suffer- 
ed not. Its name, then, would not have been em- 
ployed by inspiration to designate the suffering. 
Its sacred name was consecrated to the holy union. 
If the name has, in a very few insulated cases, 
been depressed to the man, it was the Bible that 
did it ; and the Bible was not only the author, 
but the ample expositor of the depression. The 
Bible contains no intimation, direct or indirect, of 
any such depression of the name of Christ, when 
applied to his sufferings. There was none. His 
sufferings were the sufferings of the holy union in 
both its natures. 

A partnership of earth, whether commercial, 
professional, agricultural, or literary, cannot be 



76 SUFFERING OF ONE PARTNER. 

said to suffer from an injury to one of the individ- 
ual partners, in his separate and distinct capacity, 
in no wise affecting the association. The part- 
nership can only be said to suffer when the injury 
is felt by all its partners actually, and not merely 
by sympathy. To apply the partnership name to 
an injury borne by an individual partner exclu- 
sively would be a palpable misuse of the term. 
So, if in the holy union designated by the name 
of Christ, the man had been the sole sufferer, his 
individual suffering would not have been express- 
ed by the name dedicated to the holy union. Such 
an appropriation would have been a misapplica- 
tion of the sacred name of which the inspired wri- 
ters were utterly incapable. 



PERSON OF CHRIST. 77 



CHAPTER VI. 

Phrase, the Person of Christ — Means nothing more than simple 
Name, the Christ— No Analogy between Person of Christ suffer- 
ing from Pains of Human Nature and Person of ordinary Man 
suffering from corporeal Pains — Bishop Pearson again considered 
— Bishop Beveridge considered — Godhead of Christ suffered actu- 
ally, not merely by construction— If Christ suffered only in Hu- 
manity, his Sufferings, taken in reference to his Divine Beatitude 
were inconceivably small. 

The phrase, the person of Christ, holds a con- 
spicuous place in Christian theology, and is inti- 
mately connected with our subject. The union 
of his two natures constitutes what is termed the 
person of Christ ; and it is supposed by our oppo- 
nents that, from the suffering of either of his uni- 
ted natures, his person would be said to suffer. 
Hence it is argued that the scriptural declarations 
affirming that Christ suffered, in general and un- 
restricted terms, had abundant aliment in the suf- 
fering of his manhood alone. This is the citadel, 
claiming impregnable strength, in which the ad- 
vocates of the prevalent theory have intrenched 
themselves ; it requires, therefore, to be accurate- 
ly examined. 

It is believed that the phrase, the person of 
Christ, is found but once in the translation of the 

G2 



78 PERSON OF CHRIST. 

New Testament, 2 Corinthians, ii., 10. The verse 
in the translation reads thus : " To whom ye for- 
give anything, I forgive also ; for if I forgave any- 
thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave 
I it in the person of Christ." The best commen- 
tators think that this passage is incorrectly trans- 
lated, and that the original Greek words rendered 
" in the person of Christ" should have been ren- 
dered " in the name and by the authority of 
Christ." So thought Macknight, and other com- 
mentators agree with him. 

But it would be useless to pursue the inquiry 
whether the phrase, the person of Christ, is of di- 
vine or human origin. Whatever its origin may 
be, the phrase has no greater amplitude of mean- 
ing than the simple scriptural name, the Christ. 
The name expresses the union of the divine and 
human natures ; the phrase expresses nothing 
more. Christ and the person of Christ are sy- 
nonymous. Should theology seek to clothe the 
phrase with a wider meaning than belongs to the 
simple name, the extension must be wrought out 
by the artificial process of human reasoning. On 
such extension no true theory of Christian faith 
can repose. None can object to the use of the 
phrase as a convenient synonyme for the name 
of Christ ; w r e may ourselves use it for that pur- 
pose in these sheets ; beyond that its use is not 



NOT LIKE UNION OF SOUL AND BODY. 79 

sanctioned by scriptural authority. The name 
itself imports the union of the Godhead and the 
manhood ; the phrase can legitimately import no- 
thing more. 

It has been urged, that as the union of his two 
natures forms the person of Christ, in the same 
way as the union of the soul and body of an or- 
dinary man forms the person of that man, so the 
numerous passages of scripture declarative of 
Christ's sufferings are all satisfied by his having 
suffered in his humanity, in the same manner as 
an ordinary person is said to suffer, though his 
pains are corporeal. It is not within our province 
to complain of the comparison between the per- 
son of Christ, composed of his two natures, and 
the person of an ordinary man, composed of his 
body and soul, when used for purposes of gen- 
eral illustration ; but when applied to Christ's ex- 
piatory agonies, and urged to satisfy, by the suf- 
fering of his mere manhood, the oft-repeated dec- 
larations of scripture, averring his sufferings in 
terms which, according to their natural and plain 
import, would make them pervade every recess 
of his united being, nothing can be more fallacious 
and misleading than this very comparison. 

The person of an ordinary man is said to suffer 
from corporeal pains, because corporeal pains af- 



80 SOUL AND BODY SUFFER TOGETHER. 

feet his whole united being. If any one doubts 
whether an ailment of the body communicates it- 
self to the mind, let the skeptic attempt some in- 
tellectual effort with a raging toothache, or with a 
limb writhing under the agonies of the gout. So, 
mental suffering, when intense or protracted, af- 
fects the body. The disease of a broken heart, 
though it may find no place on the bills of mortal- 
ity, has, nevertheless, many victims. 

But if there was no sympathetic link between 
the human soul and her humble sister; if she stood 
impregnable in her impassibility ; if she was cased 
in armour of proof less penetrable than the fabled 
armour of the Grecian hero ; if she felt the ail- 
ments of her encircling flesh no more than the 
body feels the rents of the garments which it 
wears, then, indeed, the local pains of the outer 
man could not be ranked under the denomination 
of the suffering of his person. The chief element 
of his person is the immortal, priceless spirit with- 
in. Should that continue to bask in the sunshine 
of bliss, untouched by the local ailments of his 
mere body, those ailments would be classed under 
some more limited and humble appellation than 
that of the suffering of his person. A part of a 
person is not the person. This position is based 
on the elemental principle that a part is not 
the whole. The foot is not the person, though 



GOD SAID NOT TO SUFFER WITH MAN. 81 

forming one of its integral parts. Any ailment of 
the foot, unless it generally affected the person, 
could not be denominated the suffering of the 
person. 

If we are at liberty to suppose that, by the laws 
of his united being, the agonies of Christ's human 
nature pervaded and affected his divine essence 
also, then, and then only, would any similitude 
exist between the person of Christ suffering from 
his human anguish, and the person of an ordinary 
man suffering from corporeal pain. But the very 
corner-stone of the prevalent theory rests on the 
supposition that the anguish of Christ's human na- 
ture did not affect the divine ; that while the man 
Christ Jesus was writhing under agonies unparal- 
leled in the annals of profane or sacred story, the 
God Christ Jesus was untouched by pain ; that his 
beatitude was as perfect at Gethsemane, and on 
the cross, as it had been when, in his presence, 
" the morning stars sang together, and all the sons 
of God shouted for joy," to celebrate the birth of 
the new world which he had just brought into be- 
ing. Job, xxxviii., 7. 

If the Godhead of Christ, cased in everlasting 
impassibility, participated not in the agonies of 
his manhood, then the supposed analogy between 
the person of an ordinary man suffering from his 



82 MANHOOD PART ONLY OP CHRIST. 

corporeal pains, and the person of Christ suffering 
from the pains of his human nature, utterly fails. 
The manhood of Christ was but an insulated atom 
in the infinitude of his being. The local and in- 
communicable pains of that insulated atom would 
have been termed the sufferings of the person of 
Christ, no more than the rippling of some small 
and sequestered bay would be denominated the 
commotion of the mighty ocean to which it is 
joined. The Godhead of Christ was the infinite 
constituent of his person. While his Godhead re- 
tained in full perfection its primeval and ineffable 
beatitude, suffering would not have been predica- 
ted of the person of Christ. The insulated pangs 
of his manhood would rather have been denomi- 
nated the sufferings of his terrestial adjunct, than 
the sufferings of the august person of the incarnate 
Deity. Upon the prevalent theory, the little riv- 
ulet of human wo, bitter, indeed, and dark, as it 
could not have ruffled or discoloured, so it would 
not have given its melancholy name to the peace- 
ful, illimitable, and heavenly sea of divine felicity 
which formed the predominating, the almost ab- 
sorbing element of the person of the God " mani- 
fest in the flesh." 

Many other corollaries have been drawn from 
the phrase, the person of Christ, by the advocates 
of the prevalent theory. A few of these corolla- 



BISHOP PEARSON AGAIN. 83 

ries will be noticed here, even at the hazard of a 
partial anticipation of some future branches of our 
argument. It will hereafter appear that the Bible, 
in addition to its application of the name of Christ 
to the redeeming sufferer, virtually asserts, in va- 
rious other forms, that the second person of the 
Trinity suffered for the salvation of the world. 
All these intimations of scripture are sought to be 
neutralized by the mysterious potency of the 
phrase, the person of Christ. 

Bishop Pearson and Bishop Beveridge, and oth- 
er advocates of the prevalent theory, have ingeni- 
ously urged, that, from the intimate connexion of 
the divine and human natures in the person of 
Christ, the God became constructively man, and 
the man constructively God ; and that, therefore, 
the Bible, in virtually declaring that the second 
person of the Trinity suffered and died, meant 
nothing more than to declare that the impassible 
God constructively suffered and died in the suffer- 
ing and death of the passible man. 

The words of Bishop Pearson are as follows : 
" And now the only difficulty will consist in this, 
how we can reconcile the person suffering with 
the subject of his passion; how we can say that 
God did suffer, when we profess the Godhead suf- 
fered not. But this seeming difficulty will admit 



84 msiior beveridge. 

an easy solution, if we consider the intimate con- 
junction of the divine and human nature, and their 
union in the person of the Son. For hereby those 
attributes which properly belong to the one arc 
given to the other, and that upon good reason ; 
For seeing the same individual person is, by the 
conjunction of the nature of God and the nature 
of man, really and truly both God and man, it 
necessarily folio weth that it is true to say Cod is 
man, and as true, a man is Cod ; because, in this 
particular, he which is man is God, and he which 
is God is man/'* 

The words of Bishop Beveridge are as follows : 
"When he died, God himself may be truly said to 
have laid down his life ; for so his beloved disci- 
ple saith expressly: ' Hereby we perceive the love 
of God, because he laid down his life for us.' — 1 
John, hi., 10. Strange expressions ! Yet not so 
strange as true, as being uttered by truth itself. 
Neither will they seem strange unto us, if we tru- 
ly believe, and consider that he who suffered all 
this was and is both God and man ; not in two 
distinct persons, as if he was one person as God, 
and another person as man, according to the Nes- 
torian heresy; for if so, then his sufferings as man 
would have been of no value for us, nor have stood 
us in any stead, as being the sullerings only of a 

* Pearson on the Creed, p. 313, 311. 



THEIR DISTINCTIONS TOO NICE. 85 

finite person ; but he is both God and man in one 
and the same person, as the third general council 
declared out of the Holy Scriptures, and the Cath- 
olic Church always believed. From whence it 
comes to pass, that, although his sufferings affect- 
ed only the manhood, yet that, being at the same 
time united to the Godhead in one and the same 
person, they therefore were, and may be proper- 
ly called the sufferings of God himself; the per- 
son that suffered them being really and truly 
God."* 

With profound respect for these learned and pi- 
ous prelates, we cannot but regard their distinc- 
tions as too subtile, too involved, too metaphysical 
for gospel simplicity. We must humbly protest 
against the startling dogmas, that, by virtue of the 
union of the two natures in the person of Christ, 
" those attributes which properly belong to the one 
are given to the other," and "that it is true to say, 
God is man, and as true, a man is God." The Bi- 
ble's great Mediator himself taught the infinite dis- 
tinction between his manhood and his Godhead, 
notwithstanding their union. " My Father is great- 
er than I." — John, xiv., 28. " Why callest thou 
me good ? there is none good but one ; that is 
God."— Matthew, xix., 17. "But to sit on my 
right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but 

* Beveridge'sSermons,vol. i., p. 128. 

ii 



86 THE MAN DID NOT BECOME GOD. 

it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared 
of my Father." — Matthew, xx., 23. " But of that 
day and, that hour knoweth no man ; no, not the 
angels which are in heaven, neither the son, but 
the Father." — Mark, xiii., 32. Thus it appears, 
from the highest authority in the universe, that, 
notwithstanding the union of the two natures in 
the person of Christ, the man did not become God, 
or assume the divine attributes. Nor did the God 
sink into the man. Christ recognised, in his di- 
vine capacity, no inferiority to the Father, either 
in power, or goodness, or prescience. 

The manhood of Christ, then, was not God. 
The sufferings of his manhood were not the suf- 
ferings of the Deity. The man did not become 
constructively God ; nor were the sufferings of 
his manhood constructively the sufferings of the 
Deity. If the God was impassive, and the man 
only suffered, his human sufferings touched not the 
Godhead. The Bible would not have styled them 
the sufferings of the Godhead. God the Son suf- 
fered not by proxy. He could no more have suf- 
fered by proxy than he could have become incar- 
nate by proxy. If the God suffered not in his 
ethereal essence, the scriptural declarations of his 
sufferings are not true, in the amplitude of scrip- 
tural verity. The Bible says nothing of suffering 
by construction. The thought is not to be found 



SUFFERING AND IMPASSIBILITY. 87 

in Holy Writ. It is the imagination of the prev- 
alent theory. The Son of God suffered not con- 
structively, any more than he formed the worlds 
constructively. There is nothing constructive, 
or merely seeming, in the actions of the Holy 
Trinity. 

If, according to the prevalent hypothesis and 
theory, the divine nature is, by its own inherent 
laws, necessarily wrapped in everlasting impassi- 
bility ; if eternal and infinite beatitude belongs to 
it as an inseparable incident, whether it so wills 
or not, then the term suffering could, under no 
possible circumstances, have been applied by 
scripture to a person of the Godhead, whether 
standing by himself in unapproached glory, or 
united to an inferior nature. Impassibility and 
suffering are opposites, as much as light and dark- 
ness. They are, in respect to each other, foreign 
and incommunicable properties. Suffering can- 
not be infused into impassibility by the closest 
proximity or the most intimate union. If the God 
had been really impassive, the suffering of the 
man could no more have been infused into the im- 
passible God by construction than the salt of the 
ocean could be constructively infused into the dia- 
mond which its waves have ingulfed. Suffer- 
ing could no more be predicated of an infinitely 
impassible God, than sin could be predicated of 



88 SUFFERING OF THE GOD ACTUAL: 

an infinitely holy God. Suffering is as much op- 
posed to the inherent laws of impassibility as sin 
is opposed to the inherent laws of holiness. 

Upon the prevalent theory and its parent hy- 
pothesis, the beloved disciple could no more have 
been taught by inspiration to say, as he did in 
truth say in the passage quoted from one of his 
epistles by Bishop Beveridge himself, "Hereby 
perceive we the love of God, because he laid down 
his life for us," than he would have been taught 
by inspiration to say, that the infinitely Holy God 
committed some flagrant sin for the redemption 
of the world. He might have declared that the 
man united to the God, or the man whose body 
was the shrine of the God, had " laid down his 
life for us." But the inspired writer could not, if 
the prevalent theory and its parent hypothesis are 
true, have declared that the eternally impassible 
God had " laid down his life for us ;" for that 
would have been declaring that the eternally im- 
passible God had violated the immutable laws of 
his own infinite being. It would have been the 
assertion of a moral, perhaps physical impossibil- 
ity, and the presumptuous application of such as- 
sertion to the awful majesty of the Godhead. 

The supposition that St. John, and his inspired 
brethren of the New Testament, when they so 



NOT CONSTRUCTIVE. 89 

often declared that God the Son suffered to save 
our sinking race, meant only to indicate the suffer- 
ings of the man, and to affirm that the human suf- 
fering became the suffering of the God by con- 
struction, is a gratuitous assumption of the advo- 
cates of the prevalent theory. The inspired dec- 
larations are numerous and unequivocal. They 
are couched in simple and plain terms. They in- 
clude, within their fair purport and compass, the 
divine as well as the human nature of the person 
of Christ. There is not the slightest reason for 
supposing that the Holy Ghost meant differently 
from what he has graciously said. It is the prev- 
alent theory, and not the Bible, which affirms that 
the man suffered actually, and the God only con- 
structively. 

We have thus followed, through several of its 
varying aspects, the argument of our learned and 
pious opponents, derived from the phrase, the per- 
son of Christ ; a phrase deemed by them compe- 
tent to satisfy not only the abounding averments 
of the Bible that Christ suffered, but also the af- 
firmation that God " laid down his life for us," and 
various other like scriptural declarations, indicating 
that the second person of the Trinity actually suf- 
fered for the redemption of the world. We now 
propose to bring this far-reaching and high-soaring 
argument of the prevalent theory to another test. 

H 2 



90 PERSON OF CHRIST THE SUFFERER. 

Christ combined in holy union the human son 
of the Virgin, and he who, from everlasting, had 
filled the right-hand seat of the omnipotent throne. 
This holy union our opponents love to designate 
by the phrase, the person of Christ. The person 
of Christ, then, combined the finite man and the 
infinite God. The union of the manhood and the 
Godhood was complete and indissoluble. Time 
never for a moment severed it on earth; nor 
will eternity ever sever it in heaven. The prev- 
alent theory affirms that into this holy union the 
God carried his own primeval felicity, and that it 
remained, in unimpaired perfection, during every 
hour of his terrestrial sojourn. According to this 
theory, the person of Christ enclosed in its bosom, 
from the manger of Bethlehem to the tomb of 
Joseph, the ineffable felicity of the blessed God. 
The theory, of course, holds that the person of 
Christ suffered, not by the suffering of his whole 
person, but by that of his manhood alone. 

Suffering consists in the diminution of what 
would otherwise have been the happiness of the 
sufferer. The amount of the suffering is tested by 
the amount of such diminution. In the case un- 
der consideration, the person of Christ was the 
sufferer. What, then, was the diminution of the 
felicity of the person of Christ, caused by the 
mere suffering of his manhood? We have no 



HUMAN WO COMPARED TO DIVINE JOY. 91 

weight or measure to ascertain it ; but brief re- 
flection will teach us that it must have been in- 
conceivably small. The happiness of the person 
of Christ, if his divinity tasted not of suffering, was 
infinite. It embraced the plenitude of the felicity 
of the Godhead. According to the prevalent the- 
ory, the suffering of the person of Christ was finite. 
It consisted in the suffering of the man alone. Sub- 
tract finite suffering from infinite beatitude, and 
the diminution will be too small for the most mi- 
croscopic vision. Heavy as no doubt were the 
sufferings of Christ's humanity, when estimated by 
an earthly standard, they must have been com- 
paratively light when taken in reference to the 
person of him " who hath measured the waters in 
the hollow of his hand," and " taketh up the isles 
as a very little thing." — Isaiah, xl., 12, 15. The 
bitter stream of human wo must have been ab- 
sorbed and lost in the illimitable ocean of divine 
felicity. 

If you subtract a single grain of sand from the 
globe we inhabit, arithmetic can perceive, and per- 
haps estimate the diminution ; but the subtraction 
of the suffering of the finite man from the felicity 
of the person of Christ, embracing the full beati- 
tude of the infinite God, would have caused a 
diminution of bliss too small for creature percep- 
tion. Doubtless the ken of an archangel could not 



92 SUFFERINGS SURPASS THOUGHT. 

have perceived it. The happiness of the person 
of Christ, subject to his human suffering, must have 
been incalculably greater even at Gethsemane and 
Calvary, if the God suffered not in his ethereal 
essence, than the happiness of any other person 
who ever dwelt in this lower world, including the 
days of Eden. It must have surpassed the felicity 
of any other being in the universe, save that of the 
Father and the Holy Ghost. The minute atom 
of his human suffering, compared with the mighty 
totality of his divine beatitude, was less than the 
scarcely perceptible speck that often passes over 
without obscuring the orb of day. 

Yet the Bible everywhere darkly shadows forth 
the sufferings of Christ, or, if our opponents prefer 
the phrase, the sufferings of the person of Christ, 
as having been too intense and vast for even in- 
spiration intelligibly to express in mortal language. 
The dimly portrayed sufferings darkened the face 
of day ; they convulsed the earth ; they must have 
wrung tears from heavenly eyes ; they shook, well- 
nigh to dissolution, the person of the incarnate 
God. And was it, indeed, the mere finite suffer- 
ing of Christ's humanity, bearing a less proportion 
to the totality of his infinite bliss than the glow- 
worm bears to the luminary of our system, that 
the Bible thus labours, and labours, as it were, in 
vain, adequately to express to mortal ears ? No ! 



THEORY SINKS THEM TO AN ATOM. 93 

The sufferings, in the delineation of which even 
inspiration seems to falter, were not limited to the 
finite, but pervaded also the most sacred recesses 
of that infinite essence which went to constitute 
the holy union, styled by our opponents the person 
of Christ. The sufferings of the man lay within 
the limits of scriptural delineation. The agonies 
of the God none but a God could conceive. Per- 
haps even Omnipotence could not make them in- 
telligible to creature apprehension. 

The theory which holds that the suffering ele- 
ment in the person of Christ was only the little 
speck of his humanity, with the inference to which 
it inevitably leads of the minuteness of the sub- 
traction from the bliss of his united person caused 
by the suffering of that human speck, cannot but 
detract immeasurably from the dignity and glory 
of the atonement. It sinks the expiatory suffer- 
ings of the person of Christ from their scriptural 
infinitude down to a point too small for mortal, 
doubtless too small for angelic vision. 

The position that, of the two natures united in 
the person of Christ, the one suffered and the other 
never tasted of suffering ; that the one was filled 
to overflowing with unutterable anguish, and the 
other with inconceivable joy ; that the one drank 
to its dregs " the cup of trembling," while the oth- 



94 REASON OPPOSED TO THEORY. 

er was quaffing the ocean of more than seraphic 
beatitude, can derive no support from human rea- 
son. Such a theory, tending, as it does in no 
small degree, to augment " the mystery of Godli- 
ness," required plenary scriptural proof for its sup- 
port. Its advocates have not furnished such proof. 
In the face of the Christian world, we affection- 
ately, yet solemnly invoke its production, if to be 
found in the Word of God. 



CONCURRENCE OF TWO NATURES. 95 



CHAPTER VII. 

Natures of Christ concurred and participated in all his Sayings and 
Doings — So in Heaven and on Earth — All his Sayings and Doings 
were in his Mediatorial Character, requiring Concurrence and Par- 
ticipation of United Natures — No Exception in Article of Suffer- 
ing — Examples of Concurrence and Participation — Farther Exam- 
ples, in case of Miracles— Moanings on Cross in United Natures — 
Mediation a Suffering Mediation — Eternal Son " emptied himself" 
of his Beatitude as well as Glory on becoming incarnate. 

The concurrence and participation of the divine 
and human natures of Christ, according to the 
measure of their respective capacities, in all his 
sayings and doings, is a doctrine fairly deducible 
from the Word of God. The elucidation of this 
great truth will be the object of the present chapter. 

The concurrence and participation of the two 
natures of Christ in all his sayings and doings 
subsequent to his resurrection and ascension will 
not be disputed. The man ascended with the 
God to heaven ; he is seated with the God at the 
right hand of the Highest ; he will come with the 
God, in the clouds of heaven, to judge the world 
in righteousness. The stupendous words closing 
the mediatorial drama, "Come, ye blessed," and 
" Depart from me, ye cursed," will be pronounced 
by those very lips from whence proceeded that 



* 

96 BOTH NATURES CONCURRED. 

never-to-be-forgotten sermon on the mount, so 
fraught with fearful truths, so abounding in gra- 
cious benedictions. It would have seemed a 
strange anomaly, if there had not existed the like 
concurrence and participation of the divine and 
human natures of the incarnate God in all the say- 
ings and doings of his earthly pilgrimage. 

No such anomaly is indicated by the Word of 
God. On the contrary, it is a clear inference 
from holy writ that the two natures of Christ con- 
curred and participated, according to the measure 
of their respective capacities, in all his sayings and 
doings, from his birth in the manger until the 
" cloud received him" out of the sight of his stead- 
fastly-gazing disciples. 

The terrestrial sojourn of the second person of 
the Trinity, clothed in flesh, was wholly mediato- 
rial. It was the discharge of the arduous duties of 
his mediatorial office that called him down to earth 
and detained him there. When its terrestrial du- 
ties were done he re-ascended to his native heav- 
ens. In the structure of the mediatorial office, the 
constituent elements were divinity and manhood. 
The concurrence and participation of both these 
elements were indispensable. Had the Godhead 
withdrawn its full concurrence and participation, 
the mediatorial work must have stood still, as did 



NO EXCEPTION IN SUFFERINGS. 97 

once the sun on Gibeon. The prevalent theory- 
will not deny our general position ; but it seeks to 
carve out an exception in the article of suffering. 
The exception can find no scriptural passage 
whereon to rest the sole of its foot. The Bible 
everywhere speaks of the second person of the 
Trinity, arrayed in manhood, not only as an in- 
carnate, but also as a suffering Mediator. 

We have seen that the name of Christ, in some 
one of its synonymes, occurs sixteen hundred and 
twenty-five times in the New Testament. The 
name is to be found eight hundred and thirty-one 
times in the four gospels, and seven hundred and 
ninety-four between the end of the gospels and 
the close of Revelation. In no one of these six- 
teen hundred and twenty-five instances is there 
the slightest intimation that, from the general rule 
requiring the concurrence and participation of the 
two natures of Christ in all his mediatorial say- 
ings and doings, there was an exception carved 
out in the article of suffering. The omission could 
not have occurred sixteen hundred and twenty- 
five times by accident or inadvertence. It was 
the Holy Ghost who spoke ; and he spoke to set- 
tle the landmarks of human faith. This ominous 
omission spontaneously multiplies itself into six- 
teen hundred and twenty-five scriptural arguments 
against the existence of the alleged exception, 

I 



98 THE GOD AND MAN ACTED IN CONCERT, 

The redeeming God and the redeeming man 
were born together. They spent together the 
long interval between infancy and manhood. At 
the maturity of the man, they together began and 
continued to preach glad tidings to the poor; 
they went about in concert doing good. It was 
in fulfilment of the duties of his mediatorial office 
that " Jesus went about all the cities and villages, 
teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the 
gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sick- 
ness, and every disease among the people." — 
Matthew, ix., 35. 

When the wearied Emanuel sat down on Ja- 
cob's Well, and craved of the wondering woman 
a draught of its cooling beverage, it was less to 
refresh the frail mortal than to afford the indwell- 
ing God an occasion to plant a twig of the tree 
of life in the moral desert of Samaria. In his sol- 
itary and prolonged prayers, the God concurred 
and participated with the man. To instruct, as 
well as to save the world, was the purpose of his 
mediatorial mission. The duty of frequent and 
retired devotion was one of the primary lessons 
taught, practically as well as theoretically, by this 
Schoolmaster from above. In the solitude of night, 
on the lonely mountain, the God, too, might best 
resume his sweet communion with the beloved 
brethren of his everlasting reign. It was the King 



BOTH NATURES JOINED IN MIRACLES. 99 

of Zion, in his united natures, who, in fulfilment 
of an inspired prediction, rode into Jerusalem, 
" lowly and meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a 
colt, the foal of an ass." — Matthew, xxi., 5. Zech- 
ariah, ix., 9. When Jesus mourned over the de- 
voted, yet still beloved city which had killed the 
prophets and stoned those who had come to it ; as 
messengers of grace, his pathetic wailing beto- 
kened less the yearning of his human heart than 
the travail of his divine spirit. 

In all the miracles of Christ, his two natures, 
according to the measure of their respective ca- 
pacities, concurred and participated. The man 
was bidden to the marriage of Cana ; the God 
there accomplished his " beginning of miracles." 
It was the man whose hand was laid upon the 
sick and the suffering ; it was the God who im- 
parted to that hand its healing power. It was 
the corporeal substance of Jesus that walked upon 
the waves ; it was his ethereal essence that up- 
held it there. It was the hand of the man that 
broke the " five barley loaves" and the " two small 
fishes ;" it was the potency of the God that multi- 
plied, and multiplied, and multiplied them into su- 
perabundant aliment for five thousand famished 
persons. It was the body of the man that was 
transfigured on the mountain ; it was the mandate 
of the God that made " his face shine as the sun, 



100 BOTH NATURES WEPT. 

and his raiment white as the light," and that sum- 
moned Moses and Elias from heaven, to behold 
the prospective glory of the incarnate Deity. It 
was the voice of the man that called Lazarus 
forth from the grave ; it was the fiat of the God 
which forced even the reluctant grave to yield up 
its victim. 

" Jesus wept." His tears were not the ebulli- 
tions of mere human sympathy. He had foreseen 
the decease of his friend, and might have averted 
it by his presence or his mandate. He was just 
about, by the mere word of his power, to reani- 
mate the dead. The physician weeps not, though 
the symptoms may wring tears from surrounding 
relatives, if he knows that, by a touch of his lancet, 
he can at once restore health and cheerfulness. 
The tomb of Lazarus symbolized a world " dead 
in trespasses and sins." Over the grave of that 
world destroyed Jesus stood, and " Jesus wept." 
The word even of Omnipotence could not reani- 
mate moral death. For that malady, the only cure 
was the blood of God. Jesus wept as a man ; 
more especially as a God did Jesus weep. 

If the two natures of Christ thus concurred and 
participated in the multifarious sayings and doings 
of his mediatorial life, why should the epoch of 
suffering have wrought a severance in natures 



THE GOD DID NOT RETIRE. 101 

which had become united and indivisible? We 
have already seen that the God lacked not phys- 
ical or moral capacity to suffer. We have justly 
inferred that suffering, actual, not figurative, was 
the object for which he had left the heavenly reins 
of universal government to wear the humble weeds 
of humanity. Why, then, should his divinity have 
retired into abeyance from the impending conflict, 
leaving its frail earthly associate to tread alone 
" the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Al- 
mighty God v 

The uncreated Son did not retire from the im- 
pending conflict. He bore his own infinite share 
of the curse of sin. Golgotha felt, in the trembling 
of its solid mount, the viewless and nameless throes 
of the suffering God. Whose voice was it that 
uttered the heaven-piercing cry, " My God ! my 
God ! why hast thou forsaken me V 9 It was the 
same voice that had commanded the winds and 
the waves, and they obeyed. It was the same 
voice which had assumed the awful appellation 
of the Old Testament, " I am." It was the same 
voice that had declared, " I and my Father are 
one. 

The wailing voice was, of course, the voice of 
the sufferer. If it was the united voice of his com- 

I 2 



102 THE WAILING VOICE. 

bined natures, then, beyond peradventure, the na- 
tures unitedly suffered. Those who affirm that 
the divine essence did not participate in the moan, 
encounter the more than Sisyphean task of demon- 
strating that the indwelling* God had retired from 
the scene of wo, leaving the struggling man alone ; 
that the divine voice which called Lazarus forth 
from the grave was hushed in profound silence ; 
and that the piteous cries from Calvary were the 
mere human wailings of Mary's son. The son 
of the Virgin was not the forsaken of his God. 
His own God, his kindred God, his sympathizing, 
indwelling God would never, for a moment, have 
forsaken him. To him his indwelling God was 
bound by ties indissoluble. But the incarnate 
Deity was himself writhing under the more than 
scorpion sting of the sins of a world. The for- 
saken of God was, alas ! the indwelling God him- 
self. The forsaken of the Father was the Father's 
own, only-begotten, well-beloved, eternal Son. 
The wailing voice, in anticipation of which the 
luminary of day had hidden its saddened face, was 
the same voice which, at the beginning, had spoken 
that luminary into being. The other dying cry 
from the cross, " Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do," was also of that same 
divine and forgiving Voice, who, " walking in the 
garden in the cool of the day," had cheered the 
despairing hearts of the guilty, penitent pair with 



BOTH NATURES PREACHED THE WORD. 103 

the distant, yet radiant vision of ever-cherished, 
ever-brightening hope. — Genesis, iii., 8, 15. 

The prevalent theory might as well seek to ex- 
clude the participation of the divinity from any 
other department of the mediatorial office as from 
its suffering department. The Bible declares that 
Christ went about preaching the " gospel of the 
kingdom." The Bible declares that Christ wrought 
a succession of stupendous miracles. The Bible 
declares that Christ suffered for the redemption 
of the world. Each declaration designates the 
Actor by the name of Christ, or one of its syn- 
onymes. Each declaration is couched in the 
same unequivocal terms, without exception, re- 
striction, or qualification. Each declaration per- 
vades the united natures of the Messiah. 

The prevalent theory has singled out the pains 
of the suffering department as the sole subject of 
its exclusion of divine participation. Why this 
distinction? There is the same scriptural evi- 
dence of the participation of the God in the medi- 
atorial sufferings as there is of the participation 
of the God in the preaching of the gospel or the 
working of the miracles. There was no peculiar 
exigency in the two last-named departments spe- 
cially requiring the actual presence of the Deity. 
Peter and Paul preached the gospel and wrought 



104 GOD-MAN WROUGHT MIRACLES. 

miracles without an indwelling God. His del- 
egated authority sufficed, while he himself remain- 
ed " high and lifted up" on his celestial throne. 
If the mediatorial Preacher of the gospel was the 
God-man in his united natures ; if the mediatorial 
Worker of the miracles was the God-man in his 
united natures, so must the mediatorial Sufferer 
have been the God-man in his united natures. 
Any distinction is arbitrary. It has no scriptural 
authority. 

There was, indeed, a special and peculiar reason 
why the God should have participated in the ago- 
nies of the suffering department. His actual par- 
ticipation alone gave to those agonies their redeem- 
ing value. He could communicate, without his 
actual presence, the right to preach the gospel 
and the power to work miracles. The infinite 
burden of suffering for the redemption of man was 
incommunicable. It was to be borne by the God, 
not bv his substitute. The God was himself to 
suffer, not merely the man substituted for the God. 
The man was to bear the finite share, the God 
the infinite share of the expiatory agonies. 

The union between the second person of the 
Trinity and his terrestrial adjunct was intimate 
beyond conception. They were one and indi- 
visible. The duration of the union was to be eter- 



MEDIATION SUFFERING ONE. 105 

nal. They now share together the glory of heav- 
en. The conclusion seems inevitable that they 
must have shared together the sufferings of earth. 
We believe that severance in suffering would have 
been as incompatible with the laws of their union 
as severance in glory. 

The mediation between God and man was a 
suffering mediation. Its element was suffering. 
In suffering it began ; in suffering was it " finished." 
In all that pertained to this suffering mediation, 
both natures of the incarnate Deity concurred and 
participated, according to the measure of their re- 
spective capacities. The man did all that human- 
ity could do ; the God did all that infinite love 
could prompt. Neither of the two natures was 
at any time inert; neither in a state of abey- 
ance. 

In the first mediatorial movement, the God was 
the sole Actor. He became incarnate ; he cast 
off "the form of God ;" he "emptied himself" of 
his celestial glory ; he took upon him the " form 
of a servant ;" he became the lowly son of a lowly 
Virgin ; he was born in a manger, and wrapped 
in its straw. That the manger actually contained, 
and that its straw actually covered Him who 
formed the worlds was no fiction. The miracu- 
lous star and the worship of the Oriental wise 



106 GODHEAD CONCURRED. 

men demonstrated a present Deity. The star 
was not an ignis fatuus to lure men into idolatry. 
The everlasting mandate, " worship God," was 
not forgotten in heaven. Sufferance was the ob- 
ject for which the second person of the Sacred 
Three thus " humbled himself." In the conclave 
of the Godhead it had been deemed most fitting 
that he should suffer clothed in the flesh of fallen 
man. The humiliation was real ; the transforma- 
tion not metaphorical ; the suffering was actual. 

In the manger of Bethlehem the son of Mary 
began to enact his humble part. The incarnate 
God, in early infancy, was carried into Egypt. 
It was a hurried, wintry journey, marked with all 
the privations of penury. Back again was he 
hurried to the land of Israel, not to find his native 
home there ; for, " being warned of God in a 
dream," his parents turned aside, to dwell as ob- 
scure strangers in the city of Nazareth. In all 
these privations, He who, from everlasting, had 
occupied the right-hand throne of glory, concur- 
red and participated. Into his distressed estate 
he carried not the beatitude of his celestial home. 
He had " emptied himself" of that, as well as of 
" the form of God." The second who bears " rec- 
ord in heaven" was, in very truth, on the earth, 
" wounded for our transgressions," and " bruised 
for our iniquities." 



SON DOFFED NOT GLORY ONLY. 107 

The allegation of the prevalent theory, that the 
second person of the Trinity, in becoming incar- 
nate, " emptied himself" of his glory alone, retain- 
ing in full perfection all his infinite beatitude, has 
no other foundation than the imagination of its 
advocates. Transcendent, indeed, is the glory 
of God. Moses could not have seen it, in all its 
effulgence, and lived. — Exodus, xxxiii., 18, 20. 
Of the glory of the Highest we would speak with 
humility and fear ; yet we trust that, without ir- 
reverence, we may be permitted to suppose that 
it pertains rather to the expression of his ineffable 
excellence than to that intrinsic excellence itself. 
It is the external manifestation of inherent, view- 
less, and infinite perfection. The glory of God is 
the robe of majesty in which he arrays himself 
" as with a garment." His beatitude dwells with- 
in, while his glory unceasingly surrounds him, as 
the halo sometimes circles the luminary of day. 
The supposition that the God, about to become 
incarnate, cast aside his glory alone, retaining and 
carrying with him to earth his infinite beatitude, 
is opposed to the letter and the spirit of the dec- 
larations of the Holv Ghost. 

«/ 

We read in Oriental story of Eastern monarchs 
doffing their regal attire, and traversing their do- 
mains in peasant weeds, to become the unknown 
spectators of the variegated and bustling drama 



108 SON "emptied himself" of bliss. 

of social life, retaining, during their metamorpho- 
sis, all their royal felicity, and bringing it back 
with them untouched to their thrones. Such was 
not the holy transformation of the Son of God. 
To mark its reality and completeness, the Holy 
Ghost selected the most potent expressions found 
in human speech ; expressions too strong for the 
fastidiousness of modern translators ; expressions 
unsatisfied by the doffing of the mere external 
robes of majesty ; expressions pervading the inner 
being, and reaching that vital region of sensation 
and life where beatitude dwells. The God about 
to become incarnate could not have been said to 
have " emptied himself," in the full meaning of the 
mighty terms, if the infinitude of his celestial bless- 
edness accompanied him through his earthly pil- 
grimage ; making the straw of the manger as 
downy a pillow as the bosom of his Father ; the 
revilings, and scoffings, and hissings of the cruci- 
fying mob as little annoying as the hallelujahs of 
heaven ; the garden and t|je cross as redolent of 
bliss as his celestial throne. 

The emptying himself of his infinite beatitude 
was peculiarly appropriate to the God, about to 
become an incarnate sufferer. Suffering was the 
object of his terrestrial mission. The suffering 
of its Creator was the price to be paid for the re- 
demption of a lost world. To qualify him for his 



UNION SEVERED NOT IN SUFFERING. 109 

suffering office, it was needful that the self-devo- 
ted Mediator should divest himself of his primi- 
tive blessedness. " The Captain of our salvation" 
could not carry the beatific peace of heaven along 
with him into his terrible campaign on earth. It 
was not with gleeful heart, any more than in tri- 
umphal robes, that " the wine-press of the wrath 
and fierceness of Almighty God" was to be trodden. 

The redeeming fk>d was present, and partaking 
in all the wanderings and hardships of the redeem- 
ing man. He was baptized by the reluctant and 
trembling John. On him rested the descending 
dove. For him the voice from heaven pro- 
claimed once, and again, and yet again, " This 
is my beloved Son." The elements recognised 
sed and obeyed the present Deity. Devils believ- 
ed and trembled. He forgave sins. He pro- 
claimed himself " Lord even of the Sabbath day." 
He toiled with his own hands. The architect of 
the universe became a laborious carpenter in the 
workshop of Joseph. Of his Godhead as well as 
his manhood was uttered the pathetic exclamation, 
" The Son of man hath not where to lay his head." 
The Creator of the world found in it no spot of 
repose until the kind grave received him. He 
was steeped " in poverty to the very lips." To 
pay the tribute money which the law exacted, he 
was obliged to work a miracle. 

K 



110 REASON REJECTS TRUTH. 

The manner in which human reason — at least 
the reason of the learned — has met and received 
the declarations of scripture, that the eternal Son 
suffered for our redemption, is a curiosity in the- 
ological literature. It has rejected the glorious 
mass of this celestial truth, and clung only to a 
fragment. It has gatuitously limited the unlimit- 
ed declarations of heaven, that the eternal Son 
suffered for our sins, by the earth-born amendment, 
" except in his divine gature^ The exception 
nearly absorbs the totality of the blessed truth. 
The remnant left bears a less proportion to the 
majestic whole than the scarcely perceptible pro- 
montory bears to the mighty continent of which 
it forms so inconsiderable a part. 

To this exception of its own creation, human 
reason has clung with a tenacity which the lapse 
of centuries has not been able to sever. On what 
basis does the exception rest ? Not on the ba- 
sis of the Bible ; for the declarations of scripture 
are unqualified and without exception ; they are 
as munificent and illimitable as the love of the 
self-devoted God. The exception is the progeny, 
not of the Bible, but of that long-continued and 
wide-spread hypothesis, " God is impassible." If 
this hypothesis should be exploded from Christian 
theology, the exception which it has engendered 
would sink, with its parent, into nothing. That 



SCIENCE HAS PRIDE. Ill 

the hypothesis itself was but the offspring of hu- 
man reasoning, we have already shown. 

We profoundly reverence science. It has trans- 
muted into plain and palpable truth, that which, 
without it, might have seemed poetic rhapsody. 
" What a piece of work is man ! how noble in 
reason ! how infinite in faculties ! in form and 
moving, how express and admirable ! in action, 
how like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a 
God !" Nor does science ever appear so majestic 
as when wearing its sacred tiara. Yet has sci- 
ence pride. Even sacred science is not always 
as humble as w r as its " meek and lowly" Master. 

" In pride, in reasoning pride" its " error lies." 

Else, why has it scaled the heavens and tried 
to bind the Omnipotent in its own puny chains ? 
Else, why has it denied to the eternal Son the in- 
effable personification of infinite love, his high pre- 
rogative of self-sacrifice to redeem a ruined world, 
and, perhaps, save a universe threatened by an in- 
undation of triumphant sin ? 



112 CHARACTER OF PAUL. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Had there been any Distinction between the two Natures of Christ 
in the Article of Suffering, it would have been indicated in the Bi- 
ble—Intellectual Character of Paul— Two Passages from 1 Peter, 
declaring that Christ suffered in the Flesh, considered and explain- 
ed — Bishop Pearson again examined — Term Flesh, when applied 
to Christ, designates his whole united Being— Term Body, when 
applied to Christ, has the same comprehensive Meaning — So has 
the term Man. 

Had there been any distinction between the 
two natures of Christ in the essential, the para- 
mount article of suffering, it was not only to be 
expected, but it was important that the inspired 
writers should have pointed it out. It would 
have been one of the landmarks of Christian faith, 
not to be left afloat at the mercy of opinion. The 
inspired writers had been well schooled in the doc- 
trines taught by the Holy Ghost, and were fully 
competent to expound them with simplicity and 
precision. 

Take, for instance, the great apostle of the Gen- 
tiles ; and at the mention of the name of Paul, we 
cannot withhold the expression of our admiration 
of his wonderful endowments, even at the hazard 
of a momentary deviation from the straight and 
onward pathway of our argument. For profound- 



CHARACTER OP PAUL. 113 

ness of intellect ; for loftiness of imagination ; 
for that glowing enthusiasm which breathes into 
genius the breath of life, he stood unsurpassed 
among the sons of humanity. Had terrestrial 
ambition contented him, he might have been the 
Demosthenes of his oppressed country, thunder- 
ing forth against Roman domination the same 
piercing bolts which the Athenian statesman, and 
patriot, and orator hurled at the head of Philip. 
He had drunk copiously of " the sweets of sweet 
philosophy ;" with the choicest treasures of the 
Grecian muse, he was familiar as with " house- 
hold words ;" but all his mental wealth and litera- 
ry acquisitions were laid humbly at the feet of his 
Redeemer. The variegated and lucid colouring, 
and the richest flowers that he had gathered in 
the fertile fields of learning, he freely offered up 
to make more clear the lineaments, and to deck 
the lovely brow of that meek and lowly religion 
which had been cradled in the manger of Beth- 
lehem, and brought up among the fishermen of 
Galilee. 

Paul, so deeply instructed in the lore of inspira- 
tion ; Paul, who had been caught up into the third 
heaven, and shown things which it was not lawful 
for him to intimate " to ears of flesh and blood," 
could not have been ignorant of the kind and ex- 
tent of his Saviour's sufferings ; and had there ex- 

K2 



114 CHRIST SUFFERED IN FLESH. 

isted a distinction between his two natures in the 
grand article of suffering, the philosophic, the lo- 
gical, the lucid, the discriminating Paul would not 
have failed to indicate it somewhere in his volu- 
minous writings, even if omitted by the less-extend- 
ed authors of the New Testament. It is not inti- 
mated by any of the inspired writers, because it 
w T as not intimated to any of them by the Holy 
Ghost. The distinction is earthborn. The gen- 
eral scriptural declarations of Christ's sufferings, 
then, according to every legitimate rule of con- 
struction, apply to his divine and human natures 
unitedly. The Bible not having severed their 
meaning, it is as indivisible as the two natures of 
Christ. 

St. Peter, indeed, speaks of Christ having suf- 
fered and died for us in the flesh. There are two 
passages in which this affirmation is made by that 
apostle. The first is as follows : " For Christ also 
hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, 
that he might bring us to God, being put to death 
in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit." — 1 Peter, 
iii., 18. The second passage is as follows : " For- 
asmuch, then, as Christ hath suffered for us in the 
flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same 
mind." — 1 Peter, iv., 1. Bishop Pearson has in- 
voked these two passages into the support of the 
prevalent theory that Christ's sufferings were con- 



WHAT ST. PETER MEANT. 115 

fined to his humanity.* And as they are the only 
scriptural passages which he has cited as bearing 
directly on the subject, we are doubtless justified 
in concluding that they were the only ones he 
could find. With the profoundest respect for the 
learned and pious prelate, we are constrained to 
dissent from his construction. Several answers 
may be given to the argument sought to be de- 
rived from these passages. 

First. St. Peter might have meant to speak only 
of the time of Christ's passion, not of its locality. 
He might have intended to say that Christ suffered 
while he was in the flesh on earth, not that his 
flesh, or even his manhood, was the sole or peculiar 
recipient of his suffering. In his epistle to the 
Hebrews, St. Paul, when referring to the " prayers 
and supplications, with strong crying and tears," 
offered up by Christ, designated their date by the 
words, " in the days of his flesh." — Hebrews, v., 7. 
So St. Peter may, perhaps, be understood as hav- 
ing merely declared that Christ suffered and died 
" in the days of his flesh." 

Secondly. The passages from 1 Peter contain 
nothing beyond the simple affirmation that Christ 
suffered and died in the flesh, a proposition that no 
one of modern times is wild enough to deny. But 

* Pearson on the Creed, p. 312. 



116 FLESH EXCLUDES NOT SPIRIT. 

they contain no declaration that he did not also 
suffer in his spirit, human and divine. The parti- 
cipation of his divinity in his sufferings is entirely 
compatible with the passages. The expression 
of the existence of one thing is, indeed, sometimes 
held to be the exclusion of the existence of a cor- 
relative thing. But that rule cannot govern the 
present case. The aim of the apostle, in the chap- 
ters from whence these passages are taken, and 
also in the preceding chapter, was to impress on 
his brethren the duty of following the example of 
Christ, especially in the article of suffering. To 
give the more point to his appeal, he might natu- 
rally have placed in its front ground the outward 
and visible suffering of their common master. It 
would not be surprising if, on this particular oc- 
casion, he designed to present rather the imitable 
example of the suffering man than the inimitable 
example of the suffering God, as the pattern to be 
followed by the suffering faithful. So that the 
declarations in 1 Peter, that Christ suffered in the 
flesh, even taking the term flesh in its restricted 
and literal sense, are not an exclusion, express or 
implied, of the conclusion that he also suffered in 
both of his immaterial substances. 

Thirdly. But the most conclusive answer to the 
passages from 1 Peter remains to be stated. And 
as this additional solution commingles itself with 



FLESH USED FIGURATIVELY. 117 

various other matters of debate between the ad- 
vocates of the prevalent theory and ourselves, we 
shall be excused if we examine it a little more in 
detail than we should have deemed necessary, had 
a reply to the passages from 1 Peter been the sole 
object in view. The Bible often employs expres- 
sions, applicable, in their primary and strict sense, 
to the outer being only, to designate also the inner 
being. Thus the term flesh, in its primary and 
literal import, expresses only the body. But it is 
often used figuratively in scripture to include the 
immaterial as well as the material part of man. 
Take the following samples of this scriptural use 
of the term : " I will not fear what flesh can do 
unto me," exclaimed the Psalmist. — Psalm lvi., 4. 
And again : " For he remembereth that they were 
but flesh."— Psalm lviii., 39. "No flesh shall 
have peace," saith the prophet. — Jeremiah, xii., 12. 
And again: " Cursed be the man that trusteth in 
man, and maketh flesh his arm." — Jeremiah, xvii., 
5. " For all flesh is grass," declared the apostolic 
Peter.— 1 Peter, i., 24. 

The incarnate God had flesh. The flesh in 
which he dwelt became the peculiar flesh of the 
eternal Word. It was moulded out of the com- 
mon mass of human flesh, and was set apart and 
consecrated as the appropriate flesh of the Son of 
God. It is now his raised and glorified flesh, 



118 FLESH OP CHRIST. 

seated at the right hand of his Father. Though 
the corporeal garment, in which he clothed him- 
self, was taken originally from the great store- 
house of humanity, it became unspeakably exalted 
by the transcendent dignity of its divine wearer. 

The term flesh, applied by St. Peter to the in- 
carnate God, in the passages so much relied on by 
Bishop Pearson, was, we have little doubt, a figure 
of speech to denote the whole united person of the 
Redeemer, human and divine. That the apostle 
used the term figuratively, at least to a certain 
extent, will not be denied by the generality of our 
opponents. Few of them will contend, with the 
celebrated commentator Whitby, that the suffer- 
ings of our Lord were confined literally to his 
body. It would ill comport with the generally 
received conceptions to suppose that mere " cor- 
poral sufferance" was accepted by the infinite 
Father as a full propitiation for the transgressions 
of the world. Even the advocates of the preva- 
lent theory will, therefore, generally understand 
the declarations of St. Peter to import mental as 
well as bodily sufferings. But, in their allow- 
ance of a figurative meaning to his declarations, 
the advocates of the prevalent theory stop short 
at the line separating Christ's human soul from his 
ethereal essence. Why stop at that line ? In- 
spiration has left no landmark there, The land- 



PLESH OF CHRIST: ITS MEANING. 119 

mark there, which has appeared for ages, is an 
earthly structure, reared by human hands. If the 
scriptural meaning of the term flesh, when applied 
to man, has ample capacity to comprehend the 
corporeal and immaterial natures of our whole 
aggregate race, why may not the scriptural mean- 
ing of the same term, when applied to the flesh 
of the incarnate Word, be capacious enough to 
include both of the united natures of the Son of 
God, though the chief element in the immaterial 
part of his united natures was his ethereal essence ? 

That the term flesh, in scriptural language, 
when applied to the incarnate God, includes his 
whole united being, human and divine, is not left 
to be deduced by any mere reasoning process. 
"And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among 
us." — John, i., 14. Here the flesh consecrated by 
the indwelling Deity was clearly used to denote 
both his natures. But for this scriptural meaning 
of the term, when thus divinely applied, w r e have 
still more explicit authority, coming direct from 
the lips of one of the Holy Three. " I am the 
living bread which came down from heaven : if a 
man eat of this bread, he shall live forever : and 
the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will 
give for the life of the world." — John, vi., 51. In 
this passage, Christ used the terms " my flesh" to 
designate that " living bread which came down 



120 FLESH OF CHRIST: ITS MEANING. 

from heaven ;" which he gave " for the life of the 
world ;" and of which, if any man eats, " he shall 
live forever." He employed the terms to denote 
the whole infinite totality of his mediatorial sacri- 
fice. He used them as an appropriate name, 
when applied to himself, to comprehend, not only 
his body and human soul, but also that ethereal 
Essence, who had, from everlasting, occupied the 
right-hand throne of heaven. 

If St. Peter used the term flesh, in the two pas- 
sages under review, according to its scriptural 
meaning when applied to Christ — a meaning 
which he himself had heard his beloved Master 
ordain and establish by the word of his own su- 
premacy — then the conclusion is inevitable, that 
the apostle meant to declare that our Saviour had 
suffered and died in both his united natures. He 
used the term without exception or restriction, and 
must be understood to have intended all that the 
term imports. If this conclusion is correct, then 
the two passages from 1 Peter, invoked and mar- 
shalled against us by the modern representative 
of the prevalent theory as competent of them- 
selves to vanquish all opposition, are found in the 
day of trial, though forming his whole array, to 
leave the service into which they had been im- 
pressed, and, passing over into our ranks, to form 
two of the chief supporters of our argument. 



BODY OF CHRIST: ITS MEANING. 121 

So the word body has its figurative meaning, 
and is often used to denote the inner as well as 
the outer man. Hence the expressions " some- 
body" and " nobody." Hence, when we use the 
colloquial phrase " everybody," so constantly re- 
peated in common parlance, we include not only 
the bodies, but also the spirits of all to whom we 
refer. The scripture has borrowed the same fig- 
urative use of the word body, and applied it even 
to Christ. " And you, that were some time alien- 
ated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, 
yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh 
through death." — Colossians, i., 21, 22. " By the 
which will we are sanctified through the offering of 
the body of Jesus Christ once for all." — Hebrews, 
x., 10. " Who his own self bare our sins in his 
own body on the tree." — 1 Peter, ii., 24. In these 
passages, the inspired writers used not the word 
" body" merely to denote the clay tabernacle of 
Christ ; for then would they have made his suffer- 
ings literally and strictly corporeal, thereby sink- 
ing their dignity from the infinite to the finite. 
They used the term " body" as expressive, not 
only of the outward visible materiality, but also of 
the immaterial, breathing, living principle within. 

When our Lord, at the institution of his com- 
memorative supper, gave to his disciples the sac- 
ramental bread, declaring " This is my bodv," he 

L 



122 TERM MAN USED FIGURATIVELY. 

did not mean that the body of which the bread 
was symbolical consisted of the mere corporeal 
temple of his flesh. That alone was not the price 
to be paid for the redemption of the world. The 
terms " my body" according to the sublime mean- 
ing of the divine speaker, comprehended the in- 
dwelling God, whose self-sacrifice was to sanctify 
that outer temple, and form a glorious structure 
of salvation worthy of its great architect. The 
consecrated bread was typical, not only of the 
material, but also of the viewless and spiritual 
substance of the God incarnate. The terms were 
used by Christ to represent and designate the 
whole infinitude of his united being. 

The scriptural custom of using the outer name 
to denote the inner being is exemplified in a still 
more striking instance. The second person of 
the Trinity, shrouded in flesh, was often called 
man by his own inspired apostles. Even he, who 
was caught up into the third heaven, frequently 
so termed his beloved and divine Master. " Ye 
men of Israel, hear these words ; Jesus of Naza- 
reth, a man approved of God among you." — Acts, 
ii., 22. " Because he hath appointed a day, in 
the which he will judge the world in righteous- 
ness, by that man whom he hath ordained." — Acts, 
xvii., 31. " For if through the offence of one 
many be dead, much more the grace of God, and 



CHRIST CALLED MAN. 123 

the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus 
Christ, hath abounded unto many." — Romans* v., 
15. There is "one mediator between God and 
men, the man Christ Jesus." — 1 Timothy, ii., 5. 
" But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice 
for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of 
God." — Hebrews, x., 12. 

These inspired writers well knew — they felt in 
every pulsation of their throbbing hearts — the 
melting, the exalting truth, that the manhood of 
their Redeemer bore a less proportion to his God- 
head than the dim and fading star of morning 
bears to " the glorious king of day rejoicing in 
the east." Yet they called him man. They 
thus gave a seeming prominence to his manhood, 
only as a faint emblem — a shadowy figure of the 
ineffable splendours of the Godhead throned with- 
in. Thus they added a crowning illustration to 
the scriptural custom of expressing, ky things 
that are seen, things that are invisible. We close 
this train of thought, protracted, perhaps, too long, 
with a request to the reader that he will apply 
our remarks to kindred passages, which, escaping 
our notice, may occur to his, and which, though 
seemingly confined to the outer man of Christ, 
and tending to limit his sufferings to his humani- 
ty, may nevertheless, on a little examination, be 
found to comprehend also the indwelling Godhead. 



124 BLOOD AND DEATH OF CHRIST. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Blood and Death of Christ — Blood, when applied to Christ, has a 
Meaning more comprehensive than its ordinary Import — It means 
Totality of Expiatory Sufferings — Christ really died — Death reach- 
ed both his Natures. 

There is yet another class of scriptural passa- 
ges bearing upon the question under discussion, 
which requires a more deliberate consideration. 
The efficiency of the blood of Christ in the scheme 
of redemption is a cardinal doctrine of the New 
Testament. It asserts that we are washed in his 
blood ; that we are cleansed by his blood ; that 
we are made white by his blood ; that we are 
purged by his blood ; that we are redeemed by 
his blood ; that he bought us with his blood ; that 
without the shedding of blood there could be no 
remission^ So the death of Christ is plainly shad- 
owed forth in the Old Testament, and forms the 
absorbing theme of the New. Now it is said that 
blood and death could not have been predicated 
of the ethereal essence of the Godhead ; that God 
is a Spirit, without blood or corporeal substance ; 
that God is an eternal Spirit, and necessarily in- 
capable of dying. Hence it is confidently urged 
that the oft-repeated scriptural declarations con- 
cerning the blood and death of our blessed Lord 



BLOOD OF CHRIST: ITS MEANING. 125 

must have referred to the man Christ Jesus, and 
not to the indwelling God. The answers, the con- 
clusive answers to these imposing objections, may 
be arranged under two heads. 

First. The incarnate God had blood. It was 
sweated forth at Gethsemane ; it was poured out 
on Calvary. But the Bible, in speaking of Christ's 
blood, gives to the term a meaning vastly more 
comprehensive than its ordinary signification. 
When our Lord, the same night in which he was 
betrayed, after supper, took the cup, and, having 
given thanks, gave it to his disciples, saying, 
" Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the 
New Testament ;" and when his disciples, in obe- 
dience to his command, drank of the cup, they did 
not actually drink of the blood then flowing warm 
in the veins of their Master ; the sacramental fluid 
of which they partook was the " blood of the New 
Testament ;" that mystical, viewless ocean of sal- 
vation provided, by the whole expiatory suffer- 
ings of Christ, for " the healing of the nations." 
In thus expanding the term blood, when used to 
denote the blood of the Mediator between God 
and man, we place ourselves upon the authority 
of the dying declarations of the eternal Son. The 
expansion of the term, when applied to his own 
most precious blood, was dictated by his own un- 
erring lips. — Matthew, xxvi,, 27, 28. So, when 

L2 



126 BLOOD OF CHRIST: ITS MEANING. 

the New Testament declares that the redeemed of 
every age and nation are " washed," and " cleans- 
ed," and " made white," and " purged" by the blood 
of Christ, it means not to use the term in its strict 
literal import, but in the same comprehensive sense 
in which our Saviour had himself used it at the 
institution of his holy eucharist. 

In this vast ocean of infinite grace, opened at 
the dawn of time, Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, 
and Abraham, and Lot were regenerated and 
sanctified, centuries* before the vital element had 
begun to circulate through the arteries of the infant 
Jesus. In this same never-ebbing ocean, bound- 
less as the love of God, will all the countless myr- 
iads of the redeemed of all times, and tongues, and 
climes continue to be " washed," and " cleansed," 
and "made white," and "redeemed," until the 
mighty angel, standing . with one foot on the sea 
and the other on the earth, and lifting his hand to 
heaven, shall swear by him that liveth forever and 
ever that there shall beHime no longer. 

Christ is said, in scripture, to have purchased 
us with his blood. But how small a part did the 
blood actually drawn from his veins by the sweat 
of Gethsemane and the irons of Calvary form of 
the infinite price which he paid ! The price, the 
infinite price of the purchase, was the whole stu- 



BLOOD OF CHRIST: ITS MEANING. 127 

pendous aggregate of his humiliation and suffer- 
ings. The first great payment was made when 
he exchanged his throne in heaven for the manger 
of Bethlehem. The payments were continued 
every day of his suffering life. From his birth to 
his death, he was " a man of sorrows, and acquaint- 
ed with grief." He wandered about houseless and 
friendless, hungry and athirst. He had not, like 
the foxes of the field, a hole to which he might re- 
tire ; he had not, like the birds of the air, a nest 
wherein he might repose. He was hunted, " like 
a partridge on the mountains," until he found rest 
in the tomb of Joseph. Gethsemane had poured 
its copious and tearful contribution into the treas- 
ury of justice, and the last instalment of the mighty 
debt created by our sins was paid on Calvary. 

By the blood of Christ, then, the oracles of truth 
mean the totality of the merits of his expiatory 
sufferings. This explanation solves the seeming 
mystery of Paul's injunction, " Feed the Church 
of God, which he hath purchased with his own 
blood." — Acts, xx., 28. The proposition contain- 
ed in the injunction was literally correct. God 
the Son, in very fact, purchased the Church with 
his own blood, according to the sublime meaning 
of the term, as expounded by himself at his sac- 
ramental supper. The passage from Acts, then, 
is clear proof that the Godhead of Christ partici- 



128 BIBLE DEALS NOT IN DETAIL. 

pated in his sufferings ; for, had not his Godhead 
participated, the sufferings with which he purcha- 
sed his Church could not have been called the 
blood of God. He purchased his Church, not 
with the pains of the man alone, but. with the hu- 
miliation and agonies of the God, actual, and not 
merely constructive. Had the man only suffered, 
the stupendous proposition would not have been 
true, that God purchased the Church "with his 
own blood." The Bible deals little in detail. By 
one or two trumpet-notes, it is wont to awaken 
trains of thought sufficient to fill uninspired vol- 
umes. Had it recounted all the variegated suf- 
ferings of Christ, corporeal and mental, human and 
divine, we would almost be led to suppose that, 
literally, " even the world itself could not contain 
the books that should be written." — John, xxi., 25. 
From the countless group of his agonies, the Bible 
has selected the palpable and startling incident of 
his shed blood — an incident always appalling to 
humanity — as one well calculated deeply to im- 
press on the imagination, the memory, and the 
hearts of men the whole most pathetic tragedy of 
his vicarious sufferings, divine and human, com- 
mencing when he left the right hand of his Fa- 
ther, and ending not until, from the cross, he cried, 
" it is finished," and gave up the ghost. 

Secondly. The incarnate God could die. He 



UVITED NATURES DIED. 129 

did die. Without his life-giving death the Bible 
would be a dead letter, or, rather, " a consuming 
fire." The incarnate God, in his united natures, 
was born of woman, as the ordinary sons of hu- 
manity are born ; he died in his united natyres, 
as the ordinary sons of humanity die. If the God- 
head of Christ is an eternal spirit, so is the soul 
of an ordinary man, as to the eternity to come. 
The human soul is as deathless as the ethereal es- 
sence of its Creator. The soul of an ordinary 
man does not cease to be at his death, any more 
than the ethereal essence of the Son of God ceased 
to be when he died in his united natures. There 
is nothing more startling in the idea that the sec- 
ond person of the Trinity really died in his united 
natures than there is in the thought that he really 
became incarnate and was born. 

But we rest our position, that the second person 
of the Trinity really died in his united natures, 
upon authority as much above the dogmas of hu- 
man reason as the heavens are higher than the 
earth. After the resurrection of Christ, his lately 
crucified, but now risen and spiritualized body, ac- 
companied its divine occupant to his celestial 
home, bearing, no doubt, on its hands the print of 
the nails, and in its side the mark of the spear 
shown to the unbelieving Thomas. *m 



130 DECLARATION AT PATMOS. 

It was the second person of the Trinity, clothed 
in his now glorified vestment of flesh, who appear- 
ed to St. John when he was in the Spirit on the 
Lord's day, commencing with the thrilling dec- 
laration, " I am the first and the last ; I am he that 
liveth and was dead, and, behold, I am alive for- 
ever more." — Revelation, i., 17, 18. The same di- 
vine speaker, in the eleventh verse, declared of 
himself, " I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the 
last." Who was he of whom the declaration was 
thus made that he had been dead ? It was the 
same being who was alive again. And who was 
he that was thus alive ? It was the God-man in 
his united natures. To give truth, then, to the 
divine declaration, it must have been the God- 
man, in his united natures, who had been dead. 

Nor is this all. The glorious apparition at Pat- 
mos, in declaring that he had been dead, did not 
intend merely to refer to the severance of the im- 
material and material parts of his being. The 
speaker was the Creator and the Ruler of the uni- 
verse. When he said that he himself, his own, 
undivided, majestic self, had been dead, he did not 
mean to point alone to the visible extinction of his 
life on Calvary. He must rather have primarily 
intended to intimate to that beloved disciple, who 
had leaned on his bosom, as far as mortal ears 
could hear and live, those mysterious agonies, 



DECLARATION AT PATMOS. 131 

aptly termed death, which, as the incarnate sub- 
stitute for sin, his divine spirit had endured from 
the overflowing deluge of infinite wrath. 

The declaration at Patmos was by the God of 
truth. It was, as it were, his official proclama- 
tion to the universe of a stupendous event, in which 
he had been himself the Actor. The declaration 
must have been the essence of ingenuous truth ; 
true to the letter, true to the ostensive import of 
its unlimited terms in all their amplitude ; with- 
out covert meaning or misleading innuendo. How 
do the sanctity and the plenitude of its awful truth 
overwhelm that theory of man which would make 
the God at Patmos, notwithstanding the unquali- 
fied universality of his words, intend nothing more 
than that his death had consisted in the mere dis- 
solution of his frail garment of humanity, leaving 
unimpaired and untouched his own divine beati- 
tude ! 

There are other expressions, not yet the subject 
of comment, in this august passage, which seem 
to carry along with them intrinsic demonstration 
that the redeeming God had been dead, and was 
alive again. He who spoke, and he who had 
been dead, and he who was alive again, was 
identical. The speaker applied to himself, in the 
three stages of his action — the speaking, the dying, 



132 DECLARATION AT PATMOS. 

and the resuscitated stage — the same personal pro- 
noun, " I am he that liveth and was dead ; and, 
behold, I am alive forever more." If the speaker 
was God, it follows that he who had been dead 
and was alive again was also God. That he who 
spoke was God, is self-evident from the fact that 
he appropriated to himself, perhaps, the loftiest at- 
tribute of the Godhead. He styled himself " the 
First," " the Alpha." The Alpha, then, was he 
who spoke, and had been dead, and was alive 
again. The Alpha was the speaking God, the 
dying God, the living God of this ever-living pas- 
sage. To predicate all this of the human son of 
the Virgin would be impiety, were it not for inno- 
cency of intention. The human son of the Virgin 
was created out of nothing in the reign of Herod ; 
he was not coeval with the uncreated Ancient of 
Days. Instead of being the principal personage 
of the passage, the human son of the Virgin was 
not named in it, or even made the subject of allu- 
sion. He was not thus named, or even made the 
subject of allusion, because he was only the guise, 
the vestment, the human veil covering the ineffable 
and shrouded glories of the speaking God, the dy- 
ing God, the resuscitated God of the first chapter 
of Revelation. 

But reason here interposes her speculations and 
her objections. She deems that the declarations 



MAN SHOULD CREDIT GOD. 133 

of the God at Patmos, if literally understood, would 
come into collision with his attributes ; that he 
had not capacity to suffer in his united natures ; 
that if he had the capacity, it was not " fitting to 
God" thus to suffer ; that the declarations of the 
God at Patmos are too high, too vast, too incom- 
prehensible and stupendous to be entitled to full 
credence, according to the plain import of the 
terms. We would respectfully invite the authors 
of these suggestions to turn their eyes to the eighth 
and ninth verses of the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. 
" For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 
are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as 
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my 
ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts 
than your thoughts." 

i 
The revealed " ways" and " thoughts" of God 

are not only beyond, but sometimes seemingly op- 
posed to reason. To yield them implicit credence 
often requires a flight of sublime faith not of easy 
attainment. Yet Abraham, the father of the faith- 
ful, " staggered not at the promise of God through 
unbelief." Proud philosophy might have urged 
that the fulfilment of the promise involved a phys- 
ical impossibility. Yet the faithful Abraham " be- 
lieved God, and it was counted to him for righte- 
ousness." — Romans, iv., 3, 20. Our argument asks 
nothing but belief in the declarations of the living 

M 



134 MAN SHOULD CREDIT GOD. 

God. It seeks not to sustain the doctrine that the 
Godhead of Christ participated in his expiatory 
sufferings by the frail props of human reasoning. 
It fixes its great doctrine on the adamantine found- 
ation, that " the mouth of the Lord hath spoken 
it." — Isaiah, i., 20. The doctrine developed may, 
indeed, be too lofty for mortal comprehension. It 
may be opposed to what reason deems " fitting to 
God." It may come into imagined collision with 
the attributes of the Deity. It should, neverthe- 
less, be enough to convince, at least to silence un- 
belief, that " the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 

The meaning of the term death and its syno- 
nymes, when applied by inspiration to the ethe- 
real essence of the incarnate God, will be made a 
theme of reverential inquiry in some part of the 
ensuing chapter. 



DEATH OP ETERNAL SON. 135 



CHAPTER X. 

Death of the Eternal Son — Scriptural Passages proving it — His Ex- 
altation — What was meant by his Death— Not mere Physical 
Death — Why his Sufferings called Death — Visible Expiration on 
Cross, but Representative of his viewless Death. 

The great apostle to the Gentiles declared, 
" When we were enemies, we were reconciled to 
God by the death of his Son." — Romans, v., 10. 
The two following passages are found in one of the 
epistles of the beloved disciple : " Hereby perceive 
we the love of God, because he laid down his life 
for us." — 1 John, iii., 16. " In this was manifest- 
ed the love of God towards us, because that God 
sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we 
might live through him. Herein is love, not that 
we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his 
Son to be the propitiation for our sins." — 1 John, 
iv., 9, 10. We have presented these two passa- 
ges from 1 John in the order in which they stand 
in the epistle, but shall, nevertheless, consider the 
last first. 

Who was the " propitiation for our sins ?" He 
was the " only begotten Son" of the Father ; he 
was the Son, whom the Father " sent" " into the 
world." It was not the human son of the Virgin. 



136 PROPITIATION FOR SINS. 

That terrestrial son — that son by adoption — was 
not the " only begotten Son" of the Father. Nor 
was he begotten of the Father at all ; the concep- 
tion of the Virgin was by the power of the Holy 
Ghost. — Luke, i., 35. The human son of Mary 
was not " sent" " into the world ;" it was in the 
world that he was born and created. " The pro- 
pitiation for our sins," then, was no less a being 
than the second person of the Trinity. 

How did the second person of the Trinity be- 
come "the propitiation for our sins?" The be- 
loved disciple himself informs us, in the first of the 
passages transcribed from his epistle. The sec- 
ond person of the Trinity became " the propitiation 
for our sins" when " he laid down his life for us." 
The term " death," in the passage from Romans, 
means the same as the terms " he laid down his 
life for us," in the passage from 1 John. In both 
passages the Sufferer is the same, though he is 
called "God" in one of the passages, and "his 
Son" in the other. Each passage plainly points 
to the second person of the Trinity, and each pas- 
sage virtually declares that he died for our re- 
demption. Of the same import is the following 
passage : " And the life which I now live in the 
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved me, and gave himself for me." — Galatians, 
ii. f 20. The terms " and gave himself for me" 



REDEEMING GOD "EMPTIED HIMSELF." 137 

are synonymous with the term " death" and the 
terms " he laid down his life for us," found in the 
preceding passages. Nor is the following passage 
of less decisive bearing : " Who, being the bright- 
ness of his" (God's) " glory, and the express image 
of his person, and upholding all things by the 
word of his power, when he had himself purged 
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty 
on high." — Hebrews, i., 3. We learn elsewhere 
in scripture that the purging of our sins was ef- 
fected by the blood of God. — Acts, xx., 28. 

A passage that we have already partly trans- 
cribed in another connexion is too important in 
its influence on the present point to be omitted 
here. " Let this mind be in you, which was also 
in Christ Jesus ; who, being in the form of God, 
thought it not robbery to be equal with God ; but 
emptied himself, and took upon him the form of 
a servant, and was made in the likeness of men ; 
and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled 
himself, and became obedient unto death, even the 
death of the cross. Wherefore God hath highly 
exalted him, and given him a name which is above 
every name : that at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in 
earth, and things under the earth ; and that every 
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father." — Philippians, ii., 

M2 



138 PASSAGE FROM PHILIPPIANS. 

5-12. The reader will perceive that we have re- 
stored to this passage the terms "emptied him- 
self," unjustly subtracted by the translators. Who 
was it that, "being in the form of God, thought it 
not robbery to be equal with God ?" It was cer- 
tainly the second person of the Trinity. Who 
was it that " emptied himself" of the glory and 
beatitude of his Godhead ? Beyond perad venture, 
the second person of the Trinity. Who was it 
that " took upon him the form of a servant, and 
was made in the likeness of men ?" Verily, the 
second person of the Trinity. Who was it that 
" humbled himself?" Not the lowly son of the low- 
ly Virgin. No earth-born creature would have 
" humbled himself" by an everlasting alliance with 
his own kindred, indwelling God, to be consum- 
mated with a seat at the right hand of the High- 
est. Who was it that "became obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross?" With no 
less certainty, it was still the second person of the 
Trinity. In each stage of the mighty action the 
second person of the Sacred Three was, in his 
own ethereal essence, the paramount Actor. He 
was as much the paramount Actor in the article 
of death as he was the paramount Actor in the ar- 
ticle of incarnation. That theory which, down to 
the dying scene, would leave the God the Actor, 
and, at that trying moment, suddenly withdraw 



EXALTATION OF CHRIST. 139 

the God, and substitute the man alone, is surely 
" of the earth, earthy." 

To evade the seemingly resistless force of the 
passage from Philippians, it has been contended 
that the exaltation of Christ, announced towards 
the end of the passage, was but the exaltation of 
his manhood alone ; and that, as his divinity shared 
not in, the exaltation, so his divinity participated 
not in the antecedent suffering. The celebrated 
commentator Whitby affirms that this was the 
doctrine of the fathers.* The school of Atha- 
nasius were wise in thus attempting to maintain 
their consistency. The component parts of their 
system would have been in chaotic hostility with 
each other, if, while they maintained that the hu- 
manity of Christ alone suffered, they had allowed 
that both his natures were the recipients of his ex- 
altation. The exaltation was the reward of the 
suffering. The suffering and its reward were in- 
separable. The affirmation that the Godhead of 
Christ shared in the exaltation would have drawn 
after it the affirmation that the Godhead of Christ 
must have participated in the suffering. The 
doctrine that it was the man, and not the God, 
who was exalted, would appear, therefore, to be a 
necessary element of the prevalent theory. 

* Whitby's Notes on Philippians, ii, 9. 



140 EXALTATION OF CHRIST. 

Yet this doctrine is not taught by the Bible. 
The very passage from Philippians announced 
that the subject of the exaltation was Christ Jesus ; 
that the name at which every knee was to bow 
was the name of Jesus. Christ Jesus and Jesus 
are synonymes, designating the same august Be- 
ing. That august Being united the God and the 
man. The exaltation of Christ Jesus was the ex- 
altation of both his natures. The exaltation of his 
manhood alone would have implied a severance 
of natures, made one and indivisible for eternity. 
The name at which every knee should bow com- 
prehended the God. To the indwelling God be- 
longed the infinite share of the homage of the uni- 
verse. If the man could have been severed from 
the God, the man could not have been the object 
of heaven's worship. The cherubim and the 
seraphim would not have been taught to bow the 
knee to him. " Worship God" is engraved on the 
pillars, and the walls, and the very pavements of 
heaven. It was the indwelling God that gather- 
ed the bending knees around the name of Jesus. 

Let it not be said that the Creator of the worlds 
already stood at the very pinnacle of exaltation, 
and therefore lacked capacity to be exalted far- 
ther. This imputed incapacity of God the Son to 
be exalted is german to his alleged incapacity to 
suffer. Both incapacities are the creations of the- 



EXALTATION OF TRINITY. 141 

oretic man. They pertain not to the Godhead. 
That earnest prayer by the second person of the 
Trinity while incarnate on earth, " And now, O 
Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with 
the glory which I had with thee before the world 
was," breathed forth its aspirations after that very 
exaltation with which he was greeted on his re- 
turn to his native heavens. — John, xvii., 5. 

The imagination that the persons of the God- 
head could not have been exalted by the consum- 
mation of the work of redemption, is but the mi- 
croscopic view of human reason. The whole 
Godhead were ineffably exalted. The Son was 
exalted. The Holy Ghost was exalted. The Fa- 
ther was exalted. The very passage from Phil- 
ippians announced that the confession of every 
tongue to the supremacy of Jesus Christ should 
be " to the glory of God the Father." " Glory to 
God in the highest" was the opening of the an- 
them of praise by the choir of angels who had 
descended on the plains of Bethlehem to celebrate 
the birth of the infant Messiah. — Luke, ii., 14. 
" Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power be 
unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto 
the Lamb forever," was the " new song" of heav- 
en to magnify the riches of redeeming love. — Rev- 
elation, v., 9, 13. 



142 NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 

On the triumphal return of the second person 
of the Trinity from his terrestrial pilgrimage, a 
new name was given him. He had borne in heav- 
en the name of the Son. He had received on 
earth the appellation of the Christ. On his ascen- 
sion, he was greeted at the gates of paradise as 
The Saviour op the World. This was doubt- 
less the " name which is above every name." The 
appellation of Creator he had acquired by the word 
of his power. This new name was consecrated 
in the baptism of his blood. At this name, every 
knee in heaven delights to bow. At this name, 
every knee in hell shall be constrained to bow. 
At this name, it is passing strange that every knee 
on the redeemed earth does not joyously bow ! 

But it is time that we should return from this 
unavoidable digression to the scriptural represent- 
ation of the death of the uncreated Son. In this 
connexion, the following passage must not be 
omitted : " Even as the Son of man came not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his 
life a ransom for many." — Matthew, xx., 28. Who 
was the Son of man ? He himself tells us in an- 
other of his evangelists, " And no man hath as- 
cended up to heaven, but he that came down from 
heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." 
— John, hi., 13. This was the Son of man, who 
gave " his life a ransom for many." What life 



DEATH OF ETERNAL SON BIBLE TRUTH. 143 

did he give as the priceless "ransom?" He gave 
that life " which came down from heaven." He 
gave that life which fills immensity. He gave 
that life which lived at once in heaven and on the 
earth. If farther scriptural proof is needed that 
the second person of the Trinity died " to be the 
propitiation for our sins," we invoke once more 
his own sublime proclamation to his beloved dis- 
ciple at Patmos, " I am he that liveth, and was 
dead ; and behold, I am alive for evermore, 
Amen." — Revelation, L, 18. 

It is, then, a recorded Bible representation, that 
the second person of the Trinity died for our re- 
demption. This representation, in every jot and 
tittle of its solemn import, must forever stand, 
though " heaven and earth pass away." That it 
is mysterious, and beyond the comprehension of 
human reason, is no ground for its rejection. If 
human reason can, at its discretion, discard every 
truth it does not understand, it might, by the word 
of its power, convert the universe into an infinite 
blank ; for reasoning pride cannot comprehend 
even itself. It is enough that the death of the 
second person of the Trinity, to save our sinking 
world, is registered in the Word of God. From 
its sacred repository it must not be plucked by 
ruthless force ; nor must it be extracted by the' 
chemical process of artificial interpretation. 



144 BIBLE NOT ILLUSORY. 

How are we to understand the declarations of 
scripture, that the second person of the Trinity 
died for our redemption ? Human reason has its 
ready response. The prevalent theory would 
boldly affirm that he died in no other sense than 
by the severance of the material and immaterial 
parts of his manhood ; that it was the redeeming 
man who was " wounded for our transgressions," 
and with whose " stripes we are healed ;" that the 
redeeming God remained wrapped in the mantle 
of his impassibility ; that he continued as blessed 
on earth as he had ever been in heaven ; that his 
infinite beatitude was as perfect in the most try- 
ing scene of the work of redemption as it had 
been in the crowning scene of the work of crea- 
tion. 

With profound respect, yet with profounder so- 
lemnity, must we enter our humble protest against 
a theory which would impute to the reiterated dec- 
larations of the Word of God an illusory meaning. 
The Bible could no more equivocate than its di- 
vine Author could swerve from the truth. It is the 
very soul of ingenuous frankness. It has no cov- 
ert meanings ; no deceptive reservations. When 
it declared that the second person of the Trinity 
had died, it intended what was fully equivalent to 
all that its words import ; it meant not that he 
died by fiction of law ; it meant not that he died 



ETERNAL SON NEVER CEASED TO BE. 145 

in the covering of his manhood alone ; it meant 
not that he died merely in the death of that ter- 
restrial worm which he had condescendingly ta- 
ken into holy alliance with himself. The scriptu- 
ral declarations of the death of the second person 
of the Trinity had a meaning real as the truth of 
God, high as heaven, deep as the foundations of 
the everlasting throne. 

In this vital point, it is important that we should 
not be misunderstood. We will endeavour to de- 
fine the position assumed by our argument so far 
as our finite and very limited capacity can grasp 
the mysteriousness and infinitude of the awful sub- 
ject. It would be equally opposed to our head 
and to our heart to affirm that the Bible, in predi- 
cating death of the uncreated Son of God, intend- 
ed to intimate that there has ever been a moment, 
in the flight of eternal ages, when the second per- 
son of the Trinity ceased to be. According to 
scripture, the death of a spirit causes no cessation 
of its vitality. The ethereal vigour even of the 
human soul is not palsied by the cold touch of 
physical, nor is it to be consumed by the fervent 
heat of spiritual death. When the second person 
of the Trinity " laid down his life for us" as " the 
propitiation for our sins," he was as much the ev- 
er-living God as when he breathed the breath of 
life into the nostrils of our primeval ancestor. 

N 



146 DEATH OF SON MEANT SUFFERING. 

The second person of the Trinity atoned, by 
suffering in his ethereal essence, for the sins of the 
world. He suffered, perhaps, as much as the re- 
deemed would, but for him, have aggregately suf- 
fered through an endless eternity. His expiatory 
agonies were, doubtless, beyond the conception 
of mortal man ; probably beyond the comprehen- 
sion of the highest archangel. They could not 
be bodied forth, with distinctness, in words to be 
found in any human vocabulary, nor, probably, in 
the vocabulary of heaven ; yet spiritual things, in- 
expressible and incomprehensible, are often ob- 
scurely unveiled to the imagination of man by the 
revelation of God. So it is with the secrets of 
" that undiscovered country from whose bourne 
no traveller returns." So it is with the profound- 
er secrets of that pavilion of wo, where he who 
inspired Isaiah's harp " was wounded for our trans- 
gressions' 9 and " bruised for our iniquities/' Mind- 
ful of the imperfections of human speech and the 
dimness of human conception, the Bible, to impart 
to redeemed creatures some twilight glimpses of 
the redeeming agonies of their Creator, has select- 
ed the most potent term known to the dwellers 
upon the earth ; a term appalling to the imagina- 
tion and affecting to the heart ; a term rendered 
more expressive and impressive by its very ob- 
scurity and ^comprehensiveness. That term is 



WHY HIS SUFFERINGS CALLED DEATH. 147 

death ! the vague, shadowy, and awful name of 
the king of terrors. 

The Holy Ghost, who knows all things, well 
knew that this mighty term, and its no less mighty 
synonymes, were more calculated to intimate to 
mortal apprehension the viewless, nameless, in- 
conceivable sufferings of the Redeemer of the 
world, than any other terms which human ears 
could hear and live. The name of the king of 
terrors must have been selected, not only for its 
transcendent potency, but for the affinity between 
the spiritual or second death which awaited the 
redeemed and the vicarious agonies borne for 
them by their great Redeemer. Eternal death 
awaited them. Death was the name of the pen- 
alty of their transgressions. Their Redeemer took 
on himself the penalty. The name went along 
with it, as the shadow follows the substance. The 
term death, or either of its synonymes, then, when 
applied in scripture to the second person of the 
Trinitv, meant not to intimate the cessation of his 
existence, even for a moment. It meant to shad- 
ow forth to the imagination and impress on the 
heart the image of those vicarious sufferings, equiv- 
alent to the eternal death of the redeemed, which 
the uncreated Son endured for their redemption. 

The Bible has given a mysterious prominence 



148 ATONING DEATH BEGUN NOT ON CROSS. 

to the death of Christ, representing it as the vital 
element of the mediatorial sacrifice. We have 
seen that the blood of Christ, according to its 
scriptural import, means the totality of the merits 
of his expiatory sufferings. The body of Christ 
has the same comprehensiveness of signification. 
When, at his sacramental supper, our Lord dis- 
tributed among his disciples the symbolical bread 
and wine, and called them his body and his blood, 
they typified and represented, not merely his phys- 
ical body and blood, but the whole infinitude of 
his mediatorial merits. The death of Christ, in 
its scriptural import, has the same vast amplitude 
of signification. It was not confined to his expi- 
ration on the cross. The mediatorial death, which 
wrought the salvation of the world, began when 
the second person of the Trinity " emptied him- 
self" of the glory and beatitude of his Godhead. 
It descended with him to the manger of Bethle- 
hem. It followed him to the workshop of Joseph. 
It clung with a vulture's grasp to the bosom of the 
houseless God, through his terrestrial pilgrimage. 
It included the totality of his expiatory humilia- 
tion and sufferings. Calvary witnessed its con- 
summation, not its inception. 

To limit the redeeming death of the Bible to 
the visible expiration between the two thieves 
would, by narrowing the extent and depreciating 



ATONING DEATH! WHAT. 149 

the value of the atoning offering, lower the awful 
standard of divine justice, and thus dim one of the 
brightest gems of the celestial diadem. Terrible 
indeed was the consummation of the atoning 
death. It was the outpouring of the full cup of 
God's wrath. Awful beyond what creatures on 
earth, or, probably, creatures in heaven, can ex- 
press or conceive, was the concluding scene of 
the mediatorial drama. We would not underrate 
its transcendent value. Without it, not a soul 
could have been saved. Without it, the smoke 
of the torment of the redeemed must have ascend- 
ed up forever and ever. The tremendous con- 
summation on Calvary, however, consisted not 
chiefly in the physical death of Christ. That was 
but its finite element. His physical death was 
but the demolition of " the temple of his body, * 
that it might be reared again more gloriously on 
the third day. The astonished centurion appre- 
hended not that secret, yet almighty cause which 
darkened the sun, rent the rocks, and convulsed 
the earth. 

But the hidden pavilion, in which were accom- 
plished the sufferings of the Prince of life in his 
ethereal essence, witnessed throes and spasms suf- 
ficient to have dissolved the material universe, had 
it not been upheld by the power of its agonized 
Creator. The darkened pavilion, where the 

N2 



150 atoning death: what. 

sword of the Lord of Hosts inflicted on God the 
Son "the chastisement of our peace," was the 
scene of that concentration and sublimation of 
unearthly agonies which inspiration could but 
faintly intimate to our mental vision even by the 
vague, and shadowy, and appalling figure of the 
king of terrors. 

That the term death, when applied to repre- 
sent the expiatory sufferings, was satisfied by the 
physical expiration on Calvary, is a theory op- 
posed to the letter and spirit of scripture. There 
were sufferings behind the veil which shut out 
mortal vision, unseen and nameless. Those suf- 
ferings formed the true consummation of the me- 
diatorial death of the Bible. Of that death of 
deaths, the visible extinction of life on Calvary 
was but the shadow. The physical expiration on 
Calvary was the death of the redeeming man. 
The expiatory sufferings of the redeeming God, 
included, too, under the awful name of the king 
of terrors, and constituting the infinite portion of 
the redeeming sacrifice, were viewless— unseen 
by mortals, perhaps seen only by the Sacred 
Three. The strong, yet seemingly unsatisfied 
desire of angels to look into them intimates that 
they were not open, palpable, and familiar to the 
angelic vision. 



DEATH OF ETERNAL SON. 151 



CHAPTER XL 

Death of Eternal Son continued — His Suffering Substitute for Spir- 
itual Death of Redeemed — Hence said to have " tasted Death for 
every Man" — Consisted in outpouring on him of God's Wrath 
against Sin— Comments on second Chapter of Hebrews. 

There is a physical death, and there is a spir- 
itual death, sometimes called, in scripture, the sec- 
ond death. There is a death for mortals to die, 
and a death of which immortals are capable of 
dying. When Christ said, " If a man keep my 
saying, he shall never see death ;" and again, when 
he said, " And whosoever liveth, and believeth in 
me, shall never die," he did not mean to exempt 
from physical death him who believed in him and 
kept his saying. — John, viii., 51 ; xi., 26. He left 
physical death as he found it, the common inher- 
itance of humanity. It was from spiritual death 
only that our Lord promised to protect those who 
yielded him their belief and their obedience. 
When Paul declared that Christ had " abolished 
death," he spoke only of the death of the redeem- 
ed soul. — 2 Timothy, i., 10. 

It was, then, to save us, not from physical, but 
from spiritual death ; not from the death of time, 



152 SAINTS SAVED FROM SECOND DEATH. 

but from the death of eternity, that the second 
person of the Trinity " laid down his life." All 
the redeemed of every nation, and clime, and age 
were destined to the relentless grasp of this undy- 
ing death. They owed it an amount which human 
arithmetic has not powers to compute. Payment 
to the uttermost farthing in the sufferings of the 
ti^nsgressors — sufferings as ceaseless as the flow 
of eternity — was to be exacted. Then appeared, 
as their Redeemer, the second person of the glo- 
rious Trinity, clothed in the weeds of humanity. 
He came not to cancel or to mitigate their debts 
without full payment, for that would have been to 
make infinite justice weakly break its sword. His 
mediatorial mission had for its object the payment 
of their debts in full and in kind ; the substitution 
of his sufferings for theirs. For their spiritual 
death was interposed what the Bible calls his 
own death. His ethereal spirit bore what their 
spirits must else have borne. Hence his suffer- 
ings had the same awful name which would have 
attached to their sufferings. Nothing short of 
this infinite price could have satisfied the high and 
inflexible requisitions of infinite justice. The re- 
deeming price was death for death ; the death of 
the God for the undying death of his redeemed. 

This is what was meant by the Holy Ghost, 
speaking by the tongue of his rapt apostle, when 



TASTING DEATH! WHAT. 153 

he said "that he" (Jesus), "by the grace of God, 
should taste of death for every man." — Hebrews, 
ii., 9. It was not the taste of physical death that 
was intended. Every man had drank, or was to 
drink, of that bitter draught for himself. From 
the general doom pronounced on our first parents 
and their descendants, " Dust thou art, and unto 
dust shalt thou return," the flight of six thousand 
years has afforded but two exceptions. Of phys- 
ical death, the terrestrial son of Mary, from the 
laws of his human nature, must have tasted for 
himself, in his own person, unless he had, like 
Enoch and Elijah, been miraculously translated. 
The redeeming death, then, to be tasted, was not 
physical death, but an equivalent for the undying 
death to which the redeemed themselves stood 
exposed. 

What composed the cup of suffering, in scrip- 
ture denominated death, of which the eternal Son, 
clothed in flesh, tasted for every man, we know 
not distinctly, except that it was filled to its very 
brim with the wrath of Almighty God against sin. 
The human son of the Virgin could no more, at 
least within the brief space of mortal life, have 
drank this cup than he could have quaffed an ocean 
of liquid fire. But the second person of the Trin- 
ity, in the omnipotence of his might and the infin- 
itude of his' pitying grace, drained it, as the sub- 



154 SECOND CHAPTER OF HEBREWS. 

stitute of sinners, to its very dregs. It was a 
real, not a fictitious or seeming draining of the 
cup of God's wrath. No wonder that, at the un- 
imaginable agonies of its Creator, the sun hid its 
face in darkness ; that the rocks were rent asun- 
der ; that the earth shook to its foundations ; that 
the repose of the dead was disturbed. This, doubt- 
less, was the mystery of mysteries — new and 
" strange" in the history of the universe — which 
riveted the holy curiosity of heaven — into which 
"the angels desired to look." — 1 Peter, i., 12. 

That the apostle did not, in the ninth verse of 
the second chapter of Hebrews, mean to intimate 
that it was the mere humanity of Christ which 
" tasted death for every man," is manifest, not 
only from the kindred passages of Holy Writ, 
upon which we have been lately commenting, but 
also from the parts of this very second chapter of 
Hebrews which succeed the ninth verse. The 
succeeding verses doubtless show that the man- 
hood of Christ suffered and died. They show 
much more ; they evince that his divinity also par- 
ticipated in his sufferings and death. They utter- 
ly exclude the hypothesis that his divinity remain- 
ed shrouded in impassibility. The ninth verse 
reads thus : " But we see Jesus, who was made a 
little lower than the angels for the suffering of 
death, crowned with glory and honour ; that he 



SECOND CHAPTER OF HEBREWS. 155 

by the grace of God should taste death for every 
man." The tenth verse reads thus : " For it be- 
came him, for whom are all things, and by whom 
are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, 
to make the Captain of their salvation perfect 
through sufferings." 

The Taster of death for every man, in the ninth 
verse, is, in the tenth verse, styled the Captain of 
our salvation. The Taster of death and the Cap- 
tain of our salvation are, therefore, identically one 
and the same. Who, then, was the Captain of 
our salvation ? Certainly the second person of 
the Trinity clothed in flesh. The human son of 
the Virgin was not the Captain ; he was but the 
subaltern in the work of redemption. To sup- 
pose that the august personage of these passages 
tasted death in his human nature merely, and was 
the Captain of our salvation, not only in his hu- 
man nature, but also in his divine, is a gratuitous 
assumption. The concurrence of both his natures 
was equally necessary in each of the departments. 
The assumption is worse than gratuitous : it is a 
fatal blow to the simplicity, the directness, the in- 
genuousness, the harmony of these two sister ver- 
ses of Sacred Writ. 

The Captain of our salvation was made " per- 
fect through sufferings." The expressions last 



156 MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING. 

quoted were doubtless applied to the humanity of 
Christ. They were also applied to his divinity. 
As God, he was, indeed, infinitely perfect ere the 
worlds were formed. To perfect him, howevor, 
for his new office of Mediator between God and 
man, it was, in the conclave of eternal wisdom, 
deemed fitting that the farther qualifications of in- 
carnation and suffering should be superadded to 
the original infinitude of his perfections. Does 
any one cavil at the thought of making perfection 
more perfect ? Let the skeptic, then, look at the 
incarnation, that schoolmaster from heaven, of 
whom reasoning pride should silently learn to 
wonder and adore. Even finite intelligence can 
perceive the aptitude of suffering, as w T ell as of 
incarnation, to make perfect the divine Captain 
of our salvation. It was the suffering of the God 
which gave infinite value to his expiatory offering. 
It was by his own suffering that he best learned 
how to sympathize with suffering humanity. It 
was by his divine suffering that he taught the 
wondering hierarchies of heaven and the despair- 
ing princedoms of hell that he had become the 
Captain of our salvation, not in name only, but 
also in endurance ; that his suffering and tasting 
of death were not figures of speech, but solemn 
realities. 

In the sixteenth verse, it is said of the Taster 



TOOK ON HIM SEED OF ABRAHAM. 157 

of death for every man, called, too, the Captain 
of our salvation, that " he took not on him the na- 
ture of angels, but he took on him the seed of 
Abraham." That the Taker on him of the seed 
of Abraham was the God, about to be made man, 
is beyond peradventure. He had been pre-ex- 
istent ; he took on him the seed of Abraham of 
his own free choice. He might, had he so elect- 
ed, have taken on him the nature of angels. While 
our opponents will doubtless admit that it was the 
God who took on him the seed of Abraham, and 
that it was the God-man who became the Captain 
of our salvation, except in the article of suffering, 
they will steadfastly affirm that, in the article of 
suffering and the tasting of death, the actor was 
not the Creator, but the creature. The intelligent 
reader cannot but perceive how subversive this 
theory is of the symmetry of the whole chapter. 
Nor must he undervalue this startling fact. Not 
only every chapter, but the entire volume of the 
Word of God, must needs be symmetrical. From 
its common and divine origin, each of its diversi- 
fied parts must, of necessity, harmonize with the 
whole. Such are the laws of the material crea- 
tions of God. Such, especially, must be the law 
of the moral creation, revealed in his own Holy 
Word, indited by his own Holy Spirit. No law- 
less comet wanders in that system of grace. The 
theory, then, which, to be sustained, must bring 

O 



158 ORDER OF TRUTHS REVERSED. 

sacred texts into collision with each other, or with 
other sacred texts, cannot have come down from 
above. 

To evince more clearly the discrepancy infused 
by the prevalent theory into the second chapter 
of Hebrews, let us, for a moment, review its three 
prominent truths, in the reverse order to that in 
which they are recorded. Its three prominent 
truths are the assumption of the seed of Abraham, 
the captainship of our salvation, and the suffering 
and tasting of death. In the assumption of the 
seed of Abraham, the God was the Actor. The 
man was passive ; he was only the recipient. It 
was the incarnation of the God. The God " man- 
ifest in the flesh" became the Captain of our sal- 
vation ; and here manhood began to act its hum- 
ble part — the part of a secondary planet to the 
central sun, round which it is revolved. To the 
captainship of our salvation, suffering and death, 
of necessity, pertained. They were the chief 
purposes of the creation of the official character. 
It " behooved" the Captain of our salvation to 
suffer. — Luke, xxiv., 46. To suffer and to die 
was the object for which the living God became 
the incarnate Captain of our salvation. The Cap- 
tain of our salvation was to suffer and die in all 
the elements which constitute his being. He was 
to suffer in both his natures. He was to die the 



SECOND CHAPTER OF HEBREWS. 159 

death of a mortal ; he was to die the death of an 
immortal. If he did not suffer and die in all the 
elements which formed his united being and con- 
stituted his identity, then the Captain of our sal- 
vation was never made " perfect through suffer- 
ings/' The central sun would not become extin- 
guished, or lose its lustre from the mere dissolu- 
tion or derangement of its attendant planet. 

On the prevalent theory, the Bible was mista- 
ken in its asseveration that the Captain of our sal- 
vation suffered. The Bible supposed that the 
lightning of infinite wrath had pierced him through 
and through. The Bible was deceived ; it was 
but the rent of his outer garment. The Captain 
of our salvation, in the paramount and infinite ele- 
ment of his united being, passed scathless through 
the fiery deluge. It was only his subaltern, not 
himself, who suffered and tasted of death. The di- 
vine Captain remained cased in impassibility. If 
this be true, then He, who is the most disinterest- 
ed of beings, would not have arrogated, or per- 
mitted his inspired disciples to arrogate for him- 
self, the honours hard earned by the suffering and 
death of his devoted subaltern. In the scriptural 
proclamations of the struggles and triumphs of re- 
deeming love, it would somewhere have been an- 
nounced, or, at least, intimated, that it was the 
self-sacrificed subaltern alone who, by his suffer- 



160 SECOND CHAPTER OF HEBREWS* 

ing and death, paid the price of the world's re- 
demption. 

The second chapter of Hebrews came from the 
pen of its inspired writer a blessed family of har- 
monious truths. By the touch of the prevalent 
theory, its beautiful symmetry is marred. Its sa- 
cred sisters are made to use sacred words with 
double import, having a seeming and a covert sig- 
nification. This is not the ingenuous manner in 
which divine truth has been wont to deal with the 
children of men. In its application of the same, 
or the like terms, to the same identical subject, in 
the same holy chapter, it is a stranger to duplicity 
of meaning. 

The fourteenth verse is as follows : " Foras- 
much, then, as the children are partakers of flesh 
and blood, he also himself likewise togk part of 
the same ; that through death he might destroy 
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." 
He who, with " the children," himself likewise 
took part of flesh and blood, was the second per- 
son of the glorious Trinity. The human son of 
the Virgin took not part of flesh and blood by vol- 
untary agency. He was the passive recipient. 
That the second person of the Trinity assumed 
not incarnation from any lack of capacity to suf- 
fer in his ethereal essence, if such had been his 



SUCCOURER OF TEMPTED. 161 

holy will, has already appeared. The reasons of 
his selecting the garb of humanity as his suffering 
costume we shall attempt most^reverentially to in- 
timate in a subsequent chapter. He who, through 
death, was the destroyer of him who had the 
power of death, was the God incarnate. Was 
this death confined to any particular element of 
his united being ? The prevalent theory affirms 
that it was limited to the little speck of his man- 
hood. So said not the Holy Ghost. Inspiration, 
in designating its recipient, used terms compre- 
hending the whole united being of the incarnate 
God. Human reason has no right, by the word 
of its power, to subtract the Godhead from this 
august totality, and thus to sink the subject of the 
conquering death from its scriptural infinitude 
down to a finite atom. 

The last verse of this chapter reads thus : " For 
in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he 
is able to succour them that are tempted." This 
was doubtless applied to the man Christ Jesus. It 
was also applied to the God Christ Jesus. That the 
whole incarnate God was for a moment " tempted" 
to pause in his mediatorial career by the near ap- 
proach of his viewless, inexpressible, unimagina- 
ble sufferings, let the amazement, and agony, and 
bloody sweat, and piercing cries, and vehement 
supplications of Gethsemane bear witness. His 

02 



162 CONCURRENCE OF BOTH NATURES. 

peculiar aptitude, acquired from his own personal 
experience, to become the efficient and divine suc- 
courer of tempted buffering, in every place and in 
every age, has been tested by the lapse of eighteen 
centuries. Does any unbelieving Thomas doubt 
the infinitude of this consoling truth? Let him 
look back to the " tempted," yet triumphant mar- 
tyrdoms of the early Church. Let him trace the 
modern footsteps of the "tempted," yet patient 
and enduring missionary of the cross, on the pes- 
tilential and burning sands of Africans physical 
and moral desert. Let him strengthen his mor- 
bid faith by communing with the voices that come 
up from the islands of the farthest seas. 

That the footsteps of the mediatorial God are 
often apparent in the second chapter of Hebrews 
will not be denied by our opponents. But they 
will affirm that the footsteps of the mediatorial 
man appear still oftener ; and that, in the suffer- 
ing and dying scenes, the man is the sole actor. 
This is a just specimen of the cardinal fault of the 
prevalent theory in its whole representation of 
the character of the Messiah. Ever and anon it 
presents the God apart; still oftener it presents 
the man apart. Its scenes are perpetually chan- 
ging, sometimes in the twinkling of an ejfe, from 
the Godhead to the manhood, and thence back 
again, as suddenly, from the manhood to the God- 



CONCURRENCE OF BOTH NATURES. 163 

head. Not so the scriptural representation. In 
the grand drama of the New Testament, whose 
author is God, and whose theme is salvation, the 
Godhead and the manhood of the Mediator act 
throughout in concert. They are one and indi- 
visible ; separated, or capable of separation, in no- 
thing. They are born together ; together are 
they wrapped in the straw of the manger. They 
suffer together ; together they die. 



164 PKINCE OF LIFE. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Death of Eternal Son continued — Acts, iii., 15: Ye "killed the 
Prince of life." 1 Corinthians, ii., 8: They "crucified the Lord 
of glory." John, x., 14, 15: "I am the good shepherd." "I lay 
down my life for the sheep" — The Lamb of the fifth Chapter of 
Revelation — John, iii., 16, 17 : " For God so loved the world that 
he gave his only begotten Son." " For God sent not his Son into 
the world to condemn the world." Romans, viii., 32 : " He that 
spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." 

There is a passage in Acts, and another in Co- 
rinthians, which are kindred passages with those 
upon which we have been commenting in the pre- 
ceding chapters. The passage in Acts stands 
thus : " But ye denied the Holy One, and the Just, 
and desired a murderer to be granted unto you ; 
and killed the Prince of life." — Acts, iii., 14, 15. 
The passage in Corinthians stands thus : " Which 
none of the princes of this world knew ; for had 
they known it, they would not have crucified the 
Lord of glory." — 1 Corinthians, ii., 8. 

Who was the " Prince of life," the " Lord of 
glory," of these passages ? Doubtless it was not 
the mere humanity of him of Nazareth. Beyond 
peradventure, he whom these passages denomina- 
ted the " Prince of life," the " Lord of glory," was 



LORD OF GLORY. 165 

the second person of the Trinity, arrayed in his 
vestment of flesh. We have, then, these addi- 
tional declarations of the Holy Ghost, that the sec- 
ond person of the Trinity, thus arrayed, was cru- 
cified and killed. These declarations must have 
been accomplished in all the plenitude of their 
awful truth. Would they have been accomplish- 
ed by the crucifixion and death of the mere hu- 
manity of the Virgin's child? A man is not per- 
forated by the perforation of his vestment. That 
the ethereal essence of the second person of the 
Trinity was distorted by the wood, and lacera- 
ted by the irons of the cross, no one will be wild 
enough to intimate; but that. his ethereal essence 
endured viewless sufferings, denominated in scrip- 
ture death, inflicted by the invisible sword of the 
Lord of Hosts, of which the visible dissolution of 
his terrestrial being on Calvary was but the rep- 
resentative, we cannot doubt, with the declara- 
tions of the Holy Ghost to that effect sounding in 
our ears. 

The Sacred Three have, " at sundry times and 
in divers manners," declared, without restriction 
or limitation, that their second glorious person, 
clothed in flesh, suffered and died for the salvation 
of the world. Man, for whose sake this miracle 
of grace was wrought, yields not his credence to 
these stupendous declarations but with qualifica- 



166 STUBBORNNESS OF UNBELIEF. 

tions and exceptions, the creatures of his own rea- 
soning pride, lowering their sublime truths, as it 
were, from heaven down to earth. What is the 
cause of this strange phenomenon ? It is caused 
by the sin of unbelief, that great moral ailment of 
our natures. This ailment lost us paradise. It 
withstood the personal miracles of the Son of God. 
That celestial Physician could cure, by the word 
of his power or the touch of his hand, the physical 
maladies of man ; but to mitigate this moral mal- 
ady, he was obliged to lay down his most precious 
life. And even in the soul renovated by his blood, 
the final victory of faith over the remnant of un- 
belief is its last triumph. The sin of skepticism is 
not peculiar to the scoffing infidel ; it is the evil 
spirit which haunts the path even of the pious 
Christian. It often obtrudes its " miscreated front" 
into the closet, whither he has retired to commune 
with his Redeemer ; it sometimes pursues him to 
the very altar of his God. Regenerated man, 
while in this wilderness of temptation, is, alas ! but 
a believer in part. The time, however, is at hand 
when his feeble, trembling, hesitating faith will be 
swallowed up in glorious certainty. 

The following passage is specially relevant to 
the point in issue : " I am the good shepherd, and 
know my sheep, and am known of mine." — John, 
x., 14. " As the Father knoweth me, even so 



I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR THE SHEEP. 167 

know I the Father : and I lay down my life for 
the sheep." — John, x., 15. The last verse will be 
considered first. The speaker, in this passage, was 
Christ. When he said, " As the Father knoweth 
me, even so know I the Father," he must, beyond 
doubt, have spoken of himself in his united na- 
tures, and with special reference to his Godhead. 
It was only the omniscient Son who could know 
the Father, even as the Father knew him. " Canst 
thou by searching find out God ? Canst thou find 
out the Almighty unto perfection ? It is as high 
as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; 
what canst thou know ?" — Job, xi., 7, 8. These 
sublime interrogatories were propounded to de- 
monstrate to feeble man his utter incapacity to 
explore and comprehend the mysterious and aw- 
ful elements of the unsearchable God. The man- 
hood of Christ had no greater capacity, physical 
or intellectual, than an ordinary man ; it had no 
infinitude of comprehension ; it admitted its want 
«&f prescience. The mighty speaker, then, who 
thus claimed community of omniscience with the 
Father, must have been the fellow of the Father's 
everlasting reign. 

" And I lay down my life for the sheep." The 
speaker had two lives, the human and the divine ; 
the drop and the ocean of vitality ; distinct, yet 
united. If his meaning was that he would lay 



168 BOTH LIVES LAID DOWN. 

down the human drop, leaving the divine ocean 
untouched, then must he have made a sudden, ab- 
rupt, and strange transition, in one brief sentence, 
from the altitude of his united natures, where the 
sentence began, down to his mere exclusive hu- 
manity. There is nothing on the face of the pas- 
sage to intimate that such sudden descent was in- 
tended. Such abrupt transition is not required or 
indicated by anything in the context. In a verse 
shortly succeeding, in the same chapter, are found 
the memorable words, " I and my Father are 
one." — John, x., 30. The terms used by Christ, 
in the passage under review, were unlimited and 
illimitable. They import the laying down of 
both his lives. They are not satisfied with any- 
thing short of the totality. To compress them 
within a small fractional part of that stupendous 
whole, is to straiten, and distort, and maim the 
terms. Why will reasoning man gratuitously 
crucify the living, palpable, speaking words of 
the crucified God ? Because, as the needle is true* 
to the pole, so does unbending man implicitly fol- 
low the guidance of that hypothesis which he has 
adopted for his polar star, " God is impassible." 
Yet has it been shown that this assumed polar star, 
though it has hung for centuries on the skirts of 
the horizon, is but an exhalation of the earth. 

He who laid down his " life for the sheep" des- 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 169 

ignated himself by the name of the good shep- 
herd. " I am the good shepherd." To whom 
was this endearing name applied ? Not to the 
human son of Mary, but to the " Lord of glory." 
The human son of the Virgin was but the man- 
sion of the good shepherd — the temple consecra- 
ted by the indwelling God. As, then, a man dieth 
not because his mansion is consumed ; as the God 
is not destroyed by the destruction of the temple, 
so the life of the good shepherd would not have 
been laid down by the dissolution of his taberna- 
cle of clay, according to the mighty meaning of 
the august speaker. His declarations, which so 
astonished the heavens, could only have been sat- 
isfied by the laying down of the divine life of the 
second person of the Trinity, in the scriptural im- 
port of the stupendous terms. 

Christ did not leave the meaning of the term 
" life," as applicable to himself, to be inferred 
by reasoning process. Five chapters before that 
upon which we are commenting, he explicitly fixed 
its signification by his own paramount authority. 
" For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath 
he given to the Son to have life in himself." — 
John, v., 26. The Father's own vitality w T as im- 
parted to the Son. His was the life which came 
down from heaven. It was the life that had breath- 
ed vitality into created intelligences. When Christ, 

P 



170 LIFE OF INCARNATE GOD*. 

therefore, announced the laying down his life, he 
meant not merely the human drop. He included 
the divine ocean of being. 

According to Christ's own explication of the 
term life, when applied to himself, the life of 
the incarnate Son was as the life of the Father. 
This authoritative explication of the term, when 
so applied, became a governing precedent for all 
future cases. Christ, then, in using the same term, 
with the same application to himself, five chapters 
afterward, intended, doubtless, to abide by his own 
explication and precedent. Hence we justly infer, 
that when he declared, " and I lay down my life 
for the sheep," he meant that the life which he 
was about to lay down was as the life of the infi- 
nite Father. It was the life, the whole united 
life of the incarnate God. The advocates of the 
prevalent theory cannot escape this conclusion, 
unless they are prepared to allege that the Son 
of God applied the term life to himself in one 
sense in the fifth chapter of John, and in a totally 
different sense in the tenth chapter of the same 
evangelist. But such discrepancy of meaning, in 
the use of a term solemnly defined by himself, and 
declarative of his own vitality, could scarcely have 
proceeded from the lips of the incarnate Word ; 
at least, such discrepancy is not to be inferred 
without some scriptural intimation of its existence. 



MEANING OF TERMS. 171 

No such intimation is to be found in the volume 
of inspiration. 

The incarnate God laid down his ethereal life, 
not, indeed, by its cessation even for a moment, 
but by sustaining, in his divine essence, the expi- 
atory agonies substituted for the spiritual or sec- 
ond death that awaited the redeemed. The ex- 
piatory agonies assumed, therefore, the awful 
name of the penalty for which they were substi- 
tuted. Inspiration aptly termed those sufferings 
death. The appellation commends itself to the 
children of men by its manifest appropriateness. 

In the passage concerning the coming immola- 
tion of the Shepherd God, the pronouns " I" and 
" my" hold conspicuous places. The personal 
pronoun " I" is thrice repeated to denote the sec- 
ond person of the Trinity, clothed in flesh. " I 
am the good shepherd." " As the Father know- 
eth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay 
down my life for the sheep." Mark well the 
mighty terms, " my life." Thus applied, the little 
pronoun " my" acquired a meaning high as heav- 
en and vast as the universe. It gave such exal- 
tation to its adjunct noun as to grasp the life which 
"inhabiteth eternity." No person employs the 
name of a whole to denote one of its minute parts. 
Should a historian or geographer apply the pe- 



172 LAMB OF REVELATION. 

culiar name of a continent to designate its small- 
est kingdom, he would speak in language unintel- 
ligible and misleading. The terms " my life," ac- 
cording to their obvious and plain import, intend- 
ed the whole united life of the divine speaker. If 
he meant merely the little spark of his mortal vi- 
tality, he must, in this case, have departed from 
that simplicity and perspicuity which formed so 
distinguishing a characteristic of him who spake 
as never man spake. To narrow down the terms 
to the mere mortal life of Mary's son would be 
imparting to this stupendous passage — we speak 
it with reverence — an illusory meaning. It would 
make the passage, though infinite in seeming and 
profession, finite only in its real purpose ; finite 
only in its fulfilment. 

The Lamb of the fifth chapter of Revelation 
was certainly Christ. That Lamb had been slain. 
That glorious Lamb of God had two natures, the 
human and the divine. And had he, indeed, been 
slain but in one of them, and that, too, his inferi- 
or nature ? The scene of this sublime chapter 
was laid in the celestial court. The Lamb, hav- 
ing just taken from the right hand of him who sat 
upon the throne the sealed book, had opened its 
seals, when straightway there ascended a " new 
song" of praise and thanksgiving, perhaps louder 
and more heartfelt than even heaven had been 



GOD SENT HIS SON INTO THE WORLD. 173 

wont to hear, beginning around the throne of the 
Highest, and echoed back by "every creature 
which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under 
the earth I" For whom did this unwonted shout 
ascend ? It was raised to the glory of the Lamb. 
And why? Because he had been slain for the 
redemption of the saints. That was the reason 
specially assigned. And would the mere slaying 
of^his human nature, the mere extinction of his 
mortal life, have been thus assigned by the hie- 
rarchies of heaven as a special reason for raising 
higher than, perhaps, it had ever been raised be- 
fore, the pealing anthem of the universe ! — Reve- 
lation, v., 7-14. 

Christ, while on earth, said, " For God so loved 
the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in him should not per- 
ish, but have everlasting life. For God sent n<ff 
his Son into the world to condemn the world, but 
that the world through him might be saved." — 
John, iii., 16, 17. And the Holy Spirit, by the lips 
of one of his inspired apostles, says still more ex- 
pressively, " He" (meaning God) " that spared not 
his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how 
shall he not with him also freely give us all things V* 
— Romans, viii., 32. 

That the Being designated in these passages by 

P2 



174 god's own son means eternal son. 

the name of God was the first person of the Trin- 
ity will not be questioned. " And the Word was 
made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld 
his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the 
Father." — John, i., 14. Who was " the only be- 
gotten of the Father," " sent" " into the world," 
and " spared not," styled, in one of the passages 
forming the last paragraph, God's " own Son," by 
way of distinction and pre-eminence, and in ^ie 
other " his only-begotten Son ?" Clearly, he was 
not the human son of the Virgin. Mary's human 
offspring was not the " only-begotten Son" of the 
infinite Father. Nor did the infinite Father beget 
him. The conception of the Virgin was by the 
power of the Holy Ghost. — Luke, i., 35. 

In the thirteenth verse of the same third chap- 
ter of John, it is declared that the Son of the Fa- 
mer, there called the Son of man, " came down 
from heaven." And in one of the transcribed 
passages it is stated, as we have seen, that he was 
66 sent" " into the world." But the human son of 
the Virgin never " came down from heaven," at 
least before his ascension. Nor was he "sent" 
" into the world." It was in the world that he 
was created. It was in the manger of Bethlehem 
that he first came into being. He had no antece- 
dent existence. 



WHY SENT L\TO THE WORLD. 175 

It is demonstrated, then, that God's " own Son," 
his " only-begotten Son," his Son who " came 
down from heaven," his Son " sent" " into the 
world," and " spared not," was none other than 
the second person of the Trinity. It was not the 
mortal progeny of Mary — earth-born and earth- 
composed in the elements of his humanity — that 
formed the glowing theme of the Holy Ghost in 
these stupendous passages. He spoke of his own 
brother God as the unspared Son of the Father. 
The unspared Son was he by whom the Father 
created the worlds, the hierarchies of heaven, the 
dwellers upon earth. The unspared Son was the 
Son who had sat at his Father's right hand, and 
shared in his councils from the earliest eternity. 

For what purpose did the infinite Father send 
into the world " his own," " his only-begotten 
Son ?" It was not that he might explore this re- 
mote province of his Father's boundless empire. 
It was not that he might make a pleasant sojourn 
on this goodly earth. The Son of God was sent 
into the world to suffer. Suffering was the ob- 
ject, the great object of his mission. He came, 
not to impart dignity and value to the human suf- 
ferings of his earthly associate, but to suffer him- 
self ; to suffer, not by proxy or substitute, but in 
his own divine person. Infinite wisdom, indeed, 
thought it best that he should suffer in the fallen 



176 GOD SPARED NOT HIS OWN SON. 

nature he came to redeem. But that was only the 
garb in which he appeared. His manhood was 
but the adjunct ; his divinity was the principal. 
He came to suffer, not in his adjunct nature only ? 
but also in his principal nature. He came to 
make, not a seeming and illusory, but a real atone- 
ment for the sins of man. That venerated com- 
mon law, which our fathers brought from our fa- 
therland with their language, their liberties, and 
their religion, is encumbered with many fictions, 
which, for the supposed furtherance of justice, it 
regards as truths. The divine law deals not in 
fiction. In its administration of universal justice, 
in its penal code, in its punishment of incorrigible 
sinners, in its pardons to the penitent, all is reality. 
Its celestial city for the abode of the blessed is no 
fiction. Its great and everlasting prison-house is 
no fiction. In the passion of Christ there was no- 
thing of fiction. 

The passage transcribed from Romans contains 
terms not surpassed in awful import by any words 
written in any of the tongues of earth. God 
" spared not his own Son !" The infinite Father 
" spared not" his own infinite Son ! We have seen 
that the unspared victim was the second person 
of the Trinity. One of the Sacred Three would 
not have termed his kindred God the unspared 
of the Father, had he carried along with him his 



i 



GOD SPARED NOT HIS OWN SON. 177 

divine beatitude, in all its infinite perfection, from 
the throne of heaven to the manger of Bethlehem, 
and from the manger of Bethlehem to the tomb 
of Joseph. Had the throes and spasms by which 
salvation was earned touched not the ethereal es- 
sence of the incarnate God ; had his Godhead con- 
tinued as blissful on earth as it had ever been in 
heaven ; had the expiatory agonies devolved ex- 
clusively on his terrestrial adjunct, the uncreated, 
the eternal Son would have been the spared, and 
not the unspared of his Father. It would have 
been only the human son of Mary whom the in- 
finite Father " spared not." Yet the declaration 
that the devoted victim was " spared not," render- 
ed, by the very simplicity of its terms, lucid as the 
sunbeam, is applied by the Holy Ghost directly to 
the Father's " own Son ;" and, by necessary in- 
ference, to his " only-begotten Son ;" to his Son 
" who came down from heaven ;" to his Son who 
was " sent" " into the world." 

It was when the infinite Father inflicted on the 
divine spirit of " his own," " his only-begotten 
Son," made a voluntary curse for those he came 
to save, " the fierceness and wrath of Almighty 
God," that the tremendous declaration of the Holy 
Ghost was accomplished. The Father " spared 
not his own Son." True, that Son had been the 
fellow of his everlasting reign, with whom he had 



178 GOD SPARED NOT HIS OWN SON. 

taken " sweet counsel" ere time was known, yet 
the Father spared him not. True, the paternal 
heart yearned with throes, to which the silent, 
though deep emotions of the faithful Abraham 
were but as the finite to the infinite, yet the Father 
" spared not his own Son." True, the angelic hosts, 
if permitted to behold the appalling spectacle, 
must have cast their dismayed, their deprecatory, 
their beseeching eyes now on the descending arm, 
now on the stern, though still benignant face of 
the Ancient of Days, yet the infinite Father spared 
not his own infinite Son. True, the uncomplain- 
ing, the submissive, the unoffending Son, " brought 
as a lamb to the slaughter," presented, in his own 
meek and gentle form, an appeal to parental sym- 
pathy, almost enough to make even divine justice 
" break its sword," yet the Father spared him, not. 
This was indeed the magnanimity of a God ! This 
"became Him for whom are all things, and by 
whom are all things !" It became the First who 
bears " record in heaven ;" it became the august 
Ancient of Days ; it became the infinite Father. 
This was the sublime mode, devised in the con- 
clave of the Godhead, for " bringing many sons 
unto glory." — Hebrews, ii., 10. The sacrifice 
was not delusive ; the Holy Trinity never delude. 
It was an awful reality, not an Oriental metaphor. 

The prevailing theory, that Christ suffered only 



GOD SPARED NOT HIS OWN SON. 179 

in his humanity, must sink, as the stone sinks in the 
deep, under the overwhelming weight of the pas- 
sage from Romans, unless its advocates can, by 
their interpretation, so amend that part of Holy 
Writ as to make it read thus : God spared not the 
human nature of his own Son ! But at such an 
interpolation of the word of God the devout advo- 
cates of the prevalent theory would themselves 
stand appalled. 



180 APPREHENSIONS OF CHRIST. 

• 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Dismay and Perturbation of Christ before and during last Passion— 
His Apprehensions and Conduct contrasted with Human Martyrs, 
and Persons not Martyrs — Phenomenon not explicable on Suppo- 
sition that Humanity alone suffered — Reasons commonly assigned 
for his Dismay and Perturbation, and Fallacy of such Reasons. 

The dismay with which Christ beheld his com- 
ing sufferings, and the perturbation which their 
endurance caused him, can only be explained on 
the supposition that the sufferings were not con- 
fined to his human nature. Had the primitive 
Christian martyrs exhibited the same dismay and 
perturbation at the approach of death, one of the 
chief arguments in favour of the truth of our holy 
religion would have been lost to the world. The 
patience, fortitude, and triumph with which they 
met and endured the excruciating agonies of mar- 
tyrdom ranked high among the miracles by which 
early Christianity was propagated. " See how a 
Christian can die !" is an appeal to infidelity not 
of modern origin. Its thrilling effect was well 
known and felt in the early Church. The trium- 
phant death of the first martyrs was among the 
most eloquent of the addresses ever made by Chris- 
tianity to the pagan world. It was a miracle, per- 



SUFFERINGS OF MARTYRS. 181 

haps, more touching to the heart than the healing 
of the sick or the raising of the dead. 

The corporeal sufferings of many of the early 
martyrs were, doubtless, greater than the corpo- 
real sufferings of their Master. His was the case, 
so far as the body was concerned, of simple cru- 
cifixion. They were stoned to death with stones ; 
they were consumed by slow fires ; their flesh was 
torn off with red-hot pincers ; they were sawed 
asunder with saws ; they were drawn to pieces 
by wild beasts ; the cross was, indeed, often the 
instrument of their death, but to them was not al- 
lowed the comparative repose of simple crucifix- 
ion. Its abhorrence of the rising and hated sect 
of the Nazarenes had sharpened the devices of 
heathen cruelty ; new discoveries were made in 
the art of tormenting ; new and more agonizing 
positions of the suffering body were contrived ; 
the process of torture was rendered more slow, 
and the welcomed approach of death more linger- 
ing. To all this variety of agonies, the timid 
frailty of woman, as well as the bolder hardihood 
of man, was almost daily subjected. But nothing 
could disturb the patience, the fortitude, the seren- 
ity of the primitive martyrs. Whether belonging 
to the more robust or the more tender sex, they 
yielded not for a moment to the recoilings or mis- 
givings of human frailty ; thev rejoiced in the 

Q, 



182 FORTITUDE OF MARTYRS, 

midst of their dying spasms, and their last, falter- 
ing accents whispered joy. 

The difference between these martyrs and their 
Master in meeting and enduring the agonies of a 
violent death is an historic fact not to be passed 
over unnoticed. It is not a point of literary curi- 
osity alone ; it deeply concerns our faith. It in- 
dicates that his suffering must have differed from 
theirs, not only in its degree, but in its very ele- 
ment. Contrast, for instance, the death of Stephen 
with that of his Lord ; look at the face of the former, 
shining " as it had been the face of an angel," and 
then turn your melting eye to the " marred vis- 
age" of the latter ; listen to the joyous exclama- 
tion of the finite martyr, when he saw through 
the opening heavens the glory of God, and Jesus 
standing at the right hand of the Highest ; and 
then lend your sympathizing ear to the wailing 
of Him who hung on the cross, and belief will 
ripen into conviction that, while the sufferer whose 
clothes were laid down at the feet of Saul sustain- 
ed the pains of a man, the Sufferer on Calvary en- 
dured pangs pertaining only to infinitude. 

In farther proof of the correctness of this con- 
clusion, let us direct our attention to the enthusi- 
astic exclamations of this same Saul, baptized of 
the Holy Ghost by the name of Paul, when nearly 



AND OTHERS NOT MARTYRS. 183 

approaching his own martyrdom. " For," says 
he, " I am now ready to be offered, and the time 
of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good 
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the 
faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown 
of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous 
Judge, shall give me at that day." — 2 Timothy, 
iv., 6-8. And with these eloquent bursts of exult- 
ing faith pealing in our ears, let our souls kneel 
down beside our prostrate Lord, on the cold, hard 
earth of Gethsemane, and become the astounded 
auditors of his piteous cry, " O my Father, if it 
be possible, let this cup pass from me." — Matthew, 
xxvi., 39. 

Even without the sustaining power of religion, 
the resolved mind has often met and endured, 
without dismay, the utmost suffering of which hu- 
manity can be made the heir. The Roman Reg- 
ulus returned of his own free choice to Carthage, 
though he well knew that, to the violent death 
which awaited him there, Punic cruelty and Pu- 
nic cunning would superadd the severest tortures 
that history had ever suggested or fiction shad- 
owed forth. And when the Africans had cut off 
his eyelids, and exposed his naked and lacerated 
eyes to their scorching sands and burning sun. 
until their patience was exhausted ; when they 
had rolled about his naked person in a barrel filled 



184 DISMAY OF CHRIST PHENOMENON*. 

with sharp spikes, pointed inward, to pierce and 
tear his quivering flesh, until tardy death came at 
last to his relief, they could no more disturb the 
fortitude of the hero than they could have shaken 
Atlas from its everlasting base. Yet was Regu- 
lus but a heathen patriot. Nor is the Western 
Indian chief, tied by his captors to a tree in his 
native forests, and encompassed round with dry 
materials, just lighted by the fires which are to 
consume him, less firm and immoveable. The 
taunts of his tormentors and the searching flames 
are alike impotent to disturb his serenity. Not a 
groan is uttered ; not a sigh is breathed. The 
last, the only sound that escapes him is his shout 
of triumph. 

The dismay with which the Son of God antici- 
pated his sufferings, and the perturbation which 
their endurance caused him, have been, for more 
than eighteen centuries, the wonder of Christen- 
dom. On this phenomenon the eyes of all behold- 
ers have been riveted by their own spontaneous 
and irrepressible reflections. For where is the 
man to be found with " soul so dead" that, with 
the full assurance of the " joy set before," and the 
influences sustaining the man Christ Jesus — an as- 
surance made doubly sure by successive miracles, 
by audible and repeated voices from heaven, by 
the upholding consciousness of indwelling omnip- 



NOT EXPLICABLE BY REASON. 185 

otence — would not himself willingly endure all 
the human suffering of which the incarnate God 
could have been the recipient ? Even for the 
bawble of an earthly crown, what privations, what 
toils, w T hat scorching sands, what snow-capped 
heights, what " most disastrous chances," what 
" hair-breadth 'scapes in the imminent, deadly 
breach," have not been joyously encountered ! 
Compared, then, with a celestial diadem, a rank 
above the cherubim and the seraphim, a seat at 
the right hand of the Highest, made sure and ev- 
erlasting by the guarantee of the Godhead, how 
slight and evanescent would seem all the ills that, 
in the brief span of a single life, could be poured 
into the cup of humanity, even if unceasingly filled 
to overflowing ! 

But one solution can be given of the strange 
phenomenon of Christ's dismay and perturbation. 
His sufferings were not the mere sufferings of 
humanity. They must have had their chief seat 
within the hitherto unapproachable pavilion of 
his Godhead. The brightest intellects, deeply 
schooled in the science of logic, and armed with 
the treasures of profane and sacred lore, have 
laboured for centuries to explain the mysterious 
indications on principles familiar to human nature. 
They have utterly failed ; and the failure is a far- 
ther confirmation of the justness of our supposi- 
tion, that the sufferings of Christ penetrated the 

Q2 



186 REASONS ASSIGNED FOR DISMAY. 

sanctuary of his divinity. A brief review of the 
causes to which human ingenuity has attributed 
the dismay and perturbation of the incarnate God 
will best evince their utter insufficiency to pro- 
duce the stupendous effects attributed to them. 

First. The advocates of the prevalent theory 
have assigned, as one cause of his dismay and per- 
turbation, the new and more vivid views of the hei- 
nousness of sin suddenly impressed on him at the 
time of his last passion. This suggestion has the 
high authority of Bishop Burnett. The reverend, 
and learned, and eloquent Doctor South speaks 
thus of Christ's last passion : " What thought can 
reach or tongue express what our Saviour then 
felt within his own breast ! The image of all the 
sins of the world, for which he was to suffer, then 
appeared clear, and lively, and express to his mind. 
All the vile and horrid circumstances of them 
stood (as it were) particularly ranged before his 
eyes, in all their dismal colours. He saw how 
much the honour of the great God was abused by 
them, and how many millions of poor souls they 
must inevitably have cast under the pressures of 
a wrath infinite and intolerable, should he not have 
turned the blow upon himself, the horror of 
which then filled and amazed his vast apprehen- 
sive soul ; and those apprehensions could not but 
affect his tender heart, then brimful of the high- 



NEW VIEWS OF SIN. 187 

est zeal for God's glory and the most relenting 
compassion for the souls of men, till it fermented 
and boiled over with transport and agony, and 
even forced its way through all his body in those 
strange ebullitions of blood not to be paralleled by 
the sufferings of any person recorded in any his- 
tory whatsoever."* 

We might dismiss this assigned cause of Christ's 
dismay and perturbation with the passing remark, 
that it is nowhere intimated in the Bible ; but oth- 
er materials for its refutation, ample and conclu- 
sive, are at hand. The God Christ Jesus, before 
he left his heavenly home, had been fully con- 
scious of the heinousness of sin. He was the be- 
ing sinned against. He had come down from 
heaven to offer himself a sacrifice for sin. His 
omniscience could learn nothing new on earth of 
its frightful nature. The man Christ Jesus had 
been early taught the heinousness of sin by his own 
holy reflections. He had learned it from the au- 
dible discourses and the secret monitions of the 
indwelling God. And if he saw its heinousness 
more clearly at the time of his last passion, he 
must then also have felt more strongly the neces- 
sity of that atonement of which his humanity was 
the vehicle, to rescue from the pollution and pen- 
alty of sin the host of the redeemed. It is the ex- 

* South's Sermons, vol. iii., p. 348, 349. 



188 Christ's views of lost sinners. 

tremity of his country's danger, forcibly presented 
to the mental vision of the patriot, that best sus- 
tains his exulting resolution to die in its behalf. 

There is no reason for supposing that a near 
view of sin, to which the beholder is himself a 
stranger, can disturb the felicity of a holy being. 
Gabriel has, doubtless, a sense of sin more vivid 
than humanity ever attained. And yet Gabriel, 
with his joyous harp, still stands " in the presence 
of God.''" The humanity of Christ is glorified and 
blissful in heaven. Its sense of sin acquired on 
earth, however clear, must have grown clearer in 
the light of eternity. Yet this sense of sin, instead 
of impairing its bliss, opens wider and more en- 
rapturing views of the grace and glory of its kin- 
dred God, and swells louder its pealing anthem of 
praise and thanksgiving for his redeeming love. 

Secondly. It has been said that more affecting 
views of the countless multitudes who would re- 
ject his salvation, and of their consequent and 
eternal perdition, must have pressed upon the mind 
of Christ at the time of his last passion, and that 
these views enhanced the agonies of the garden 
and of the cross. This cause of dismay and per- 
turbation seems to be countenanced by Doctor 
South. It is sanctioned by the still higher name 
of Archbishop Seeker, once primate of all Eng- 



HIDINGS OF FATHER S FACE. 189 

land. But it is utterly destitute of scriptural au- 
thority. The God Christ Jesus knew, from the 
beginning, who would reject his proffered salva- 
tion. He always knew that he himself would one 
day pronounce their final doom with an unfalter- 
ing tongue and an unyielding heart. 

The man Christ Jesus had been early taught 
by the indwelling God that " strait is the gate and 
narrow the way which leads to life, and few there 
are who find it." And as the fate of the finally 
impenitent caught his pitying eye, he might well 
repose on the consoling reflection, that the Judge 
of all the earth would do right. It is a blessed 
provision of the Father of mercies, that the suffer- 
ings of the incorrigibly wicked are not permitted 
to impair the felicity of holy beings. If this were 
not so, the songs of heaven might be saddened by 
the waitings of the pit. If this were not so, the 
bliss of the sainted Abraham might have been dis- 
turbed, at least for the moment, by the pathetic ap- 
peal of his luxurious and lost descendant for a 
drop of water to cool his burning tongue. 

Thirdly. It has been said that the agony which 
Christ foresaw with such dismay, and met with 
such perturbation, was caused, in a great measure, 
by the privation of the light of his Father's coun- 
tenance. If it were understood that this privation 



190 HIDINGS OF FATHER'S FACE. 

reached the God Christ Jesus, it would indeed go 
far to explain the mysteries of Gethsemane and 
of Calvary. But our opponents cannot for a mo- 
ment admit that it was the divinity of Christ that 
was thus forsaken of the Father ; for that would 
at once concede that his divinity suffered ; it would 
be giving up the point at issue between them and 
us. Upon the prevalent theory, the God Christ 
Jesus, in the garden and on the cross, beheld his 
Father's countenance lit up with the same benig- 
nant smile which had been wont to greet him in 
the courts of paradise. 

But even to the man Christ Jesus it was no 
slight privation that he underwent, though but for 
a few brief hours, the hidings of his Father's face. 
The pious soul, accustomed to bask in the sun- 
shine of heavenly love, experiences, from the sen- 
sation of its temporary loss, an anguish of which 
the world cannot judge. But the sting of the suf- 
fering is the sufferer's consciousness that his own 
sins have interposed the cloud between him and 
heaven. David felt this calamity, and its terrible 
cause, rankling in the central recesses of his heart. 

Christ suffered, the "just for the unjust." He 
well knew his own spotless innocence. When his 
heavenly Father seemed to forsake him, he knew 
that it was for the sins of others, not for any de- 



Christ's supports. 191 

merits of his own. He doubted not that he was 
in the plain path of duty, however arduous and 
rugged. He knew that, if the light of his Father's 
countenance was for a brief space withdrawn, it 
was only the temporary absence of a beloved 
friend, who was sure to love him the better for 
being absent. And yet his fortitude seemed about 
to forsake him with his God ! An eclipse has no 
terrors to him who knows that it is caused only 
by the intervention of an opaque body between 
him and the central luminary, that is ever ready 
to shed on him anew its enlightening, warming, 
and cheering rays the moment the obstruction has 
passed away. Christ indeed suffered under a 
temporary eclipse of the light of his Father's face ; 
but he well knew that it was the opaque body of 
others' sins which alone caused the brief obstruc- 
tion that a few short hours would remove forever. 

Besides his consciousness of perfect innocence, 
Christ had other supports never before or since 
known in the history of suffering. He knew that 
he must conquer in the struggle ; that the united 
Godhead stood pledged for his triumph. To him 
victory was a matter, not of faith, but of knowl- 
edge. He knew, too, that the contest would be 
short ; that he should speedily rise from the dead. 
He was conscious that the reward of his suffer- 
ings would be an everlasting crown; that his 



192 SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST'S HUMAN SOUL. 

place between the two thieves would be exchan- 
ged for the right hand of God ; that he would leave 
the tomb of Joseph for the throne of heaven. He 
knew that he should " see of the travail of his soul" 
and " be satisfied ;" that his blood would save from 
perdition countless millions of fallen immortals ; 
that his sufferings would fill the kingdom of righte- 
ousness with the joyous sons and daughters of sal- 
vation, evermore raising the song of thanksgiving 
to him their Saviour King. It was a cherished 
axiom of ancient patriotism, that it was sweet to 
die for one's country. How much more self-sus- 
taining the Godlike thought of dying for a world ! 
This was the "joy set before him." For this he 
might well have " endured the cross, despising the 
shame." — Hebrews, xii., 2. 

Fourthly. The pouring out of the wrath of God 
against sin on the human soul of Christ, as the 
substitute for sinners, is assigned as another, and 
the principal cause of his dismay and perturba- 
tion. This outpouring on his human soul, and its 
loss of the light of the divine countenance, and its 
views of the heinousness of sin, and its sympathy 
in the fate of the finally impenitent, added to the 
corporeal pangs of Christ, are deemed, by the ad- 
vocates of the prevalent theory, sufficient, when 
taken collectively, to explain the phenomena of his 
last passion. We admit, indeed, that the human- 



INCAPACITY OF MANHOOD. 193 

ity of Christ participated in his sufferings to the 
extent of its very limited capacity. But besides 
the plain scriptural indications that his divinity 
also suffered, we lay it down as a principle, based 
on the inflexible laws of our nature, that the body 
and human soul of Christ had not physical capa- 
bilities to become the recipient of the amount of 
sufferings demonstrated by the dismay with which 
he beheld their approach, and the perturbation 
which their endurance caused him. Before, how- 
ever, we enter into the development of this prin- 
ciple, it is necessary that we should review the 
indications of his dismay and perturbation a. little 
more in detail than we have hitherto done. We 
shall then be the better able to pursue the de- 
velopment of the principle which we have laid 
down. 

R 



194 CALVARY. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Calvary — Contrast between Christ and penitent Thief— Gethsemane 
— Speaker and Actor was Christ in both Natures — Sufferings there 
those of Anticipation — Indications of Dismay — It was the Antici- 
pation of Spiritual, not Physical Agonies — Thrice-repeated Prayer 
— Appearance of Angel — " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even 
unto death" — What the dreaded Cup was. 

If we cast our eyes towards Calvary, we be- 
hold there the incarnate God suspended on the 
cross, and by his side the penitent thief. From 
the latter, it is not intimated that any cry of dis- 
tress arose. He was just tasting the bliss of sins 
forgiven. He was to be that day in paradise ; 
and what cared he for the intervening moments 
of pain ? Of the laceration of his quivering flesh 
his rapt spirit was no longer conscious. The 
present was lost in the glorious vision of the fu- 
ture. To him the cross was a bed of down. But 
from the incarnate God, though suffering no great- 
er corporeal pains than the penitent thief, cries 
loud, plaintive, and repeated arose. He knew 
that he also was to be that day in pajpdise ; but 
to him the beatitude of heaven seemed, for the 
moment, obscured by the agonies of earth. Over 
his drooping spirit the seraphic future appeared, 
for the time, to be lost in the present — the ab- 



GETHSEMANE. 195 

sorbing, the all-devouring present.' What caus- 
ed this mighty contrast between the indications of 
suffering displayed by the frail creature and the 
omnipotent Creator? But one solution can be 
found. The penitent thief bore the pains of a 
man ; Christ endured the agonies of a God. Had 
the sting of death been pointed at his humanity 
alone, the cross would have been anticipated with 
delight and met with triumph. The struggle on 
Calvary would have been hailed as the joyous ter- 
mination of his vicarious privations and sufferings; 
the blissful hour of his deliverance from the heavy 
curse of others' sins ; the glorious epoch of his re- 
turn to his Father's arms, crowned with the lau- 
rels of a world redeemed. 

But if we would gain deeper views of the dis- 
may and perturbation of our Lord, let us meet 
him at the Garden of Gethsemane. The occur- 
rences of the garden, so far as they relate to our 
present purpose, are thus related by St. Matthew : 
" And he took with him Peter, and the two sons 
of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very 
heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is ex- 
ceeding sorrowful, even unto death : tarry ye here 
and watch with me. And he went a little far- 
ther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O 
my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from 
me ; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. 



196 GETHSEMANE. 

And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth 
them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What ! could 
ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and 
pray, that ye enter not into temptation : the spirit 
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went 
away again the second time, and prayed, saying, 
O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from 
me, except I drink of it, thy will be done. And 
he came and found them asleep again ; for their 
eyes were heavy. And he left them, and went 
away again, and prayed the third time, saying the 
same words." — Matthew, xxvi., 37, and the ver- 
ses following. 

The narrative of St. Mark is in the following 
words : " And he taketh with him Peter, and 
James, and John, and began to be sore amazed, 
and to be very heavy ; and saith unto them, My 
soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death : tarry ye 
here and watch. And he went forward a little, 
and fell on the ground and prayed, that if it were 
possible, the hour might pass from him. And he 
said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto 
thee ; take away this cup from me ; nevertheless, 
not what I will, but what thou wilt. And he com- 
eth, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Pe- 
ter, Simon, sleepest thou ? couldst not thou watch 
one hour ? Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into 
temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the 



GETHSEMANE. 197 

flesh is weak. And again he went away, and 
prayed and spake the same words. And when 
he returned he found them asleep again (for their 
eyes were heavy) ; neither wist they what to an- 
swer him. And he cometh the third time, and 
saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest : 
it is enough ; the hour is come ; behold, the Son 
of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners." — 
Mark, xiv., 33, and following verses. 

St. Luke adds the following essential particu- 
lars to the narration: "And there appeared an 
angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. 
And being in an agony, he prayed more ear- 
nestly ; and his sweat was as it were great drops 
of blood falling down to the ground." — Luke, 
xxii., 43, 44. 

We have thus transcribed, in connexion, the 
substance of the sevefal evangelical accounts of 
the occurrences at Gethsemane, that the mind 
might take in at one view the stupendous whole. 
We cannot deem the garden forbidden ground. 
It is, indeed, a holy place. On entering it, we 
would lay aside the rough-soled sandals of con- 
troversy. We would even cast the shoes from 
our feet, as we tread the soil bedewed by the tears 
and wet with the blood of the redeeming God. 
Yet was the affecting scene revealed for the edi- 

R2 



198 GETHSEMANE. 

fication of man. " All scripture was given by di- 
vine inspiration, and is profitable for doctrine, for 
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
ness." — 2 Timothy, iii., 16. Had it not been in- 
tended for human meditation, it would have found 
no place in the Bible. The prevalent theory has 
locked up the sacred pages in which it is portray- 
ed in seemingly inextricable mystery. To unlock 
those precious pages there is but one key. Our 
comments on this memorable scene will be arran- 
ged under several heads. 

First. The speaker and actor in the garden was 
the God incarnate ; he was the Christ ; the whole 
Christ of the Bible. The notion sometimes inti- 
mated, that the indwelling Deity, at the approach 
of the last passion, retired from the impending con- 
flict, has no foundation in scripture. The emo- 
tions displayed were not the mere outbreakings 
of human frailty. It was the incarnate God who 
was sorrowful, and amazed, and agonized. To 
limit the sorrow, and amazement, and agony to 
his manhood alone would be casting into the shade, 
on the scriptural canvass, the figure of the infinite 
Creator, and giving the prominent place to the 
finite creature. 

Secondly. The anguish of Gethsemane was 
caused by the anticipation of some impending 



GETHSEMANE. 199 

and appalling evil. As yet pain had not touched 
the incarnate God, save the privations, and hard- 
ships, and revilings which had marked every foot- 
step of his suffering life. The " cup of trembling" 
was prospective. It was not yet tasted. It was 
its anticipation which, for the time, seemingly 
overwhelmed the God " manifest in the flesh." 

Thirdly. Against these anticipated evils the in- 
carnate Deity was fortified by almighty influen- 
ces, peculiar and unique. Innocence cheered his 
heart ; heaven lent its most soothing sympathies ; 
the united Godhead exerted its utmost energies 
to sustain him ; yet was Gethsemane filled with 
dismay and perturbation, the like of which time, 
in its flight of six thousand years, has not beheld. 
The Lord of glory, in his vestments of clay, cast 
himself upon the ground, his face in the dust, and 
his body wet with a bloody sweat. His soul was 
exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death ; he was 
sore amazed ; his agony was inexpressible, unim- 
aginable. Human innocence never stood thus 
aghast at the prospect of approaching ills. The 
sentenced culprit, with death and hell full before 
him, though his trembling knees may have smit- 
ten against each other as did those of Belshaz- 
zar, never sweat through the pores of his health- 
ful body " great drops of blood falling down to 
the ground." 



200 THRICE-REPEATED PRAYER. 

Fourthly. The visible and mortal pains of Cal- 
vary had little influence in heightening the awful 
pangs of the garden. The near view of its revi- 
lings, its bufferings, its scourgings, its crown of 
thorns, even the nails of its cross, would not have 
moved the serenity of an early Christian martyr. 
If they dwelt at all on the mind of the incarnate 
God, amid the tossings of Gethsemane, they must 
have seemed to him less than the scarce percepti- 
ble ripples caused by the summer zephyr compa- 
red to ocean ploughed by the wintry tempest. 
His astonished gaze was directed beyond the veil 
which limited mortal vision. There he beheld 
agonies awaiting him which no human eye could 
have seen and lived, which human language wants 
words to express, and which the human imagina- 
tion cannot soar high enough to conceive — agonies 
which his manhood had not dimensions capacious 
enough to contain, any more than a vessel formed 
by a potter of the earth could contain the illimita- 
ble sea. 

Fifthly. The thrice-repeated prayer of the gar- 
den ascended from the lips of that august Being 
who had thought it no robbery to be equal with 
God ; it was pronounced by that almighty voice 
which had commanded the winds and the waves, 
and they obeyed. With face prone on the cold 
ground, and body quivering with nameless an- 



THRICE-REPEATED PRAYER. 201 

guish, did the only-begotten, the uncreated, the 
divine, the incarnated Son utter the piercing cry, 
" O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass 
from me." To drink this very cup he had come 
into the world. Of this fearful cup he had often 
spoken. From his contemplation it had never 
been absent. Had the cup passed from him, the 
sole purpose of his incarnation would have been 
frustrated. The universe must have beheld the 
strange spectacle of a God attempting to redeem 
by his sufferings a ruined race, and failing in the 
attempt for want of fortitude to suffer. 

Yet, true it is, that, when the dismaying cup 
was just at hand, the resolution of the incarnate 
Deity seemed, for a moment, to falter. The pite- 
ous cry ascended, wafted upward by more than 
earthly fervour. The cry, and its fervour, too, 
are engraved on the Bible's imperishable record, 
pointing with demonstrative certainty to the aw- 
ful conclusion, that a single drop from that cup 
of almighty wrath must have scorched into anni- 
hilation the vital elements of the loftiest being ever 
created by the word of the Highest. That the 
infinite, the world-redeeming Son, in a moment 
superadded the pathetic qualification, " Neverthe- 
less, not as I will, but as thou wilt," while it de- 
notes the patient meekness of him who was 
" brought as a lamb to the slaughter," derogates 



202 APPEARANCE OF ANGELI 

nothing from the tremendous character of that im- 
pending cup, of which none but a God could have 
drank. 

Sixthly. "And there appeared an angel unto 
him from heaven, strengthening him." To whom 
did the angel appear ? It appeared " unto him." 
The pronoun " him" is twice used in this passage, 
and the context demonstrates that, in each instance, 
it was used to designate the Christ, the whole 
Christ. The angel then appeared, not merely to 
the human son of the Virgin, but unto the united 
being of the incarnate God. For what purpose 
did the " angel appear unto him ?" The Holy Ghost 
has informed us. It was to strengthen him. There 
is no intimation that the angel appeared merely to 
strengthen the manhood of Christ. The declara- 
tion is general, pervading, according to its plain 
signification, every recess of the united natures of 
the God " manifest in the flesh." The declaration 
would be cramped and maimed if withdrawn from 
the infinitude of his united being, to which it prop- 
erly appertains, and compressed into the finite 
speck of his humanity. Can reasoning pride erect 
itself into a court of review to expand, abridge, or 
qualify, by its own discretion, the explicit phrase- 
ology of the third person of the Trinity ? 

Perhaps reasoning pride may deem it strange 
and improbable, and therefore not to be believed, 



FOR WHAT PURPOSE. 203 

even on the word of the Holy Ghost, that an angel 
should appear to strengthen the omnipotent God. 
If reasoning pride is thus presumptuously arrogant, 
it may as well aim at consistence in its arrogance. 
Let it, then, if it dare, seek, by its rash skepticism, 
to blot out from scriptural theology the stupendous 
article of the incarnation. The incarnation was 
the wonder of wonders. That very God should 
become very flesh, and verily dwell among us, is 
surely not less strange than that an angel from 
heaven should appear unto the incarnate God, 
"strengthening him." 

The manhood of the Virgin's son needed, ordi- 
narily, no strengthening from above. Its Creator 
dwelt within ; its guardian, its guide, its protector ; 
almighty, never sleeping, ever ready to succour 
his frail terrestrial companion. To that humanity 
the indwelling Deity was wedded, and the mar- 
riage tie was to be lasting as the right hand throne 
of the Eternal. Though a woman may forget her 
sucking child, " that she should not have compas- 
sion on the son of her womb," yet could not the 
incarnate and compassionate God fail to listen to 
every sigh, and count every tear, and remember, 
as though they had been graven " upon the palms 
of his hands," all the weaknesses, and pains, and 
fears of that feeble humanity, which he had adopt- 
ed as his own, and, as it were, incorporated into 



204 WHY ANGEL APPEARED. 

himself. While the strength of the incarnate 
Deity remained unimpaired, there was no need 
that there should appear unto the human son of 
the Virgin an angel from heaven, " strengthening 
him." 

It is true that the created angel had no strength 
of his own to impart to his Creator. But he bore 
greetings from the court of heaven. He was the 
ambassador of the holy Trinity, fraught with every 
soothing, " strengthening" consideration which 
could flow from the wisdom and love of the God- 
head. It is true that the omnipresent and omnis- 
cient Father might doubtless have communicated 
directly with his omnipresent and omniscient Son. 
So he might with the prophets and patriarchs of 
the olden time. But the Father had been wont 
to communicate with the dwellers upon earth 
through the instrumentality of ministering spirits. 
That it seemed wisest to the infinitely wise that 
an angel from heaven should bear the communi- 
cation from above to the suffering God at Geth- 
semane, if it cannot satisfy, should at least silence 
the cavils of reasoning pride. 

The infinite Father, from his exalted throne, be- 
held his only-begotten, his well-beloved Son strug- 
gling in the garden. He saw him "sorrowful, 
even unto death ;" he saw him " sore amazed f 



SOUL EXCEEDING SORROWFUL. 205 

he beheld him, being in an agony, " sweat as it 
were great drops of blood, falling down to the 
ground ;" he heard his pathetic cry, " O my Fa- 
ther, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me ;" 
he saw that even his infinite and omnipotent Son, 
now made a curse for sin, was almost ready to 
sink under its more than mountain weight: and 
it was therefore that "there appeared an angel 
unto him from heaven, strengthening him." 

Seventhly. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, 
even unto death." The true meaning of the ori- 
ginal Greek word, rendered by our translators 
" soul," becomes here a subject of interest. The 
divine speaker had a material and immaterial na- 
ture. Within his body were lodged a human soul, 
and that ethereal essence, which constituted the 
second person of the Trinity ; the former bearing 
to the latter the same proportion as the finite bears 
to the infinite. The original word, here translated 
soul, when applied to ordinary men, means the 
immaterial, breathing, living principle within them. 
The term finds, within the common children of 
humanity, no other aliment. But if applied to 
subjects affording other aliment for its sustenance, 
then the term spontaneously expands itself, so as 
to embrace the whole indwelling immateriality, 
however vast it may be. Plato had received, 
through the channels of tradition, some few scat- 

S 



206 what Christ's soul was. 

tered rays of that divine light which, in early 
ages, had been communicated to man. These 
rays he carefully concentrated, and was thus en- 
abled to form a theory which advanced one in- 
cipient step towards the glorious system of re- 
vealed truth. He darkly conceived the outlines 
of an immaterial, omnipresent, omniscient God, the 
creator and preserver of the heavens and the 
earth. To denote this ethereal essence, this im- 
material, viewless, living principle, pervading and 
animating the immeasurable universe, the Atheni- 
an philosopher employed the identical Greek word 
with which the evangelists, Matthew and Mark, 
have opened their narratives of the pathetic wail- 
ings of their Lord in the garden, and which has 
been rendered soul by our translators. 

When Christ said at Gethsemane, " My soul is 
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death," he must 
have intended to declare that his whole immate- 
rial or spiritual nature was overwhelmed with sor- 
row. He intimated no distinction between the 
human and divine portions of his immaterial or 
spiritual being. He used a general term, appli- 
cable to both ; a term not technically confined to 
the human soul ; a term comprehensive enough 
to include his divine as well as his human imma- 
teriality ; a term which the great master of the 
Greek tongue had employed to denote the divine 



THE DREADED CUP. 207 

essence. When, therefore, reasoning pride seeks 
to narrow down the term thus used by Christ, so 
as to confine its meaning to the inferior part of his 
immaterial or spiritual being, bearing a less pro- 
portion to the whole than a single grain of sand 
bears to the vast earth we inhabit, it seeks to 
render particular that awful declaration which 
the Son of God left general. To make the point 
clearer, let us suppose that the translators, instead 
of the present version, had translated the passages 
in question so as to make them conform, in terms, 
to the limited meaning now sought to be attached 
to them, by inserting the adjective human before 
the substantive soul. The exclamation of Christ 
would then have stood thus : " My human soul 
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." This 
version would doubtless have been startling, even 
to the advocates of the prevalent theory. But if 
the adjective " human" is to be insinuated into the 
passages by construction, it might better have 
been openly inserted by the pen. 

What were the contents of the cup, whose 
mere anticipation caused the sorrow, and amaze- 
ment, and agony of the garden, the human ima- 
gination has not powers to conceive. It was the 
" cup of trembling," filled to overflowing with the 
" fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." The 
visible agonies of Calvary doubtless bore no com- 



208 IT IS FINISHED. 

parison to those which were unseen. The real 
tragedy was behind the curtain. There, imper- 
vious to human vision, was perfected the spiritual 
crucifixion of the eternal Son of God. The body 
of Christ heeded not the scourgings of the sol- 
diery, but his whole immaterial being writhed un- 
der the anguish of those stripes by which we are 
healed. He looked down with indifference on the 
vindictive gaze of the crucifying multitude ; but 
he looked upward with dismay at his Father's al- 
tered face. Through the opening skies he beheld 
that countenance, which, until he became a curse 
for us, had forever beamed on him with the sun- 
shine of heaven, now darkened with a frown. 
The draught of mingled vinegar and gall he could 
reject ; but now made sin, though sinless, he was 
compelled to drain to the very dregs the terrible cup 
of infinite wrath. The nails of the cross, which la- 
cerated his quivering flesh, he regarded not ; but 
he felt, in all the elements of his spiritual natures, 
that invisible, yet flaming sword of the Lord of 
Hosts, which was piercing him through and 
through, as the substitute for sinners. 

But the scene was about to close. The last cry 
was ascending from the cross. " It is finished !" 
exclaimed the dying God, and gave up the ghost. 
" It is finished I* was echoed through the courts of 
heaven with triumphant acclamations. " It is fin- 



VIEWS OF DR. CHALMERS. 209 

ished !" was reverberated through the vaults of 
hell in tones of despair. What was finished ? 
The throes and spasms of a suffering Deity were 
finished. The reconcilement of infinite justice 
and infinite mercy was finished. The everlasting 
triumph over the powers of darkness was finished. 
The redemption of a world was finished. 

We close this chapter by presenting to our 
readers the remarks of one of the master-spirits 
of the age on the extent and nature of Christ's 
sufferings. The remarks first reached our knowl- 
edge after these sheets were prepared for the 
press. The great and pious Chalmers says, " It 
blunts the gratitude of men when they think 
lightly of the sacrifice which God had to make 
when he gave up his Son unto the death ; and, 
akin to this pernicious imagination, our gratitude 
is farther deadened and made dull when we think 
lightly of the death itself. This death was an 
equivalent for the punishment of guilty millions. 
In the account which is given of it, we behold all 
the symptoms of a deep and dreadful endurance 
— of an agony which was shrunk from, even by 
the Son of God, though he had all the strength of 
the Divinity to uphold him — of a conflict, and a 
terror, and a pain, under which omnipotence it- 
self had wellnigh given way, and which, while it 
proved that the strength of the sufferer was infi- 

' S2 



210 VIEWS OF DR. CHALMERS. 

nite, proved that the sin for which he suffered, in 
its guilt and in its evil, was infinite also. Christ 
made not a seeming, but a substantial atonement 
for the sins of the world. There was something 
more than an ordinary martyrdom. There was 
an actual laying on of the iniquities of us all ; and, 
however little we are fitted for diving into the 
mysteries of the divine jurisprudence — however 
obscurely we know of all that was felt by the 
Son of God when the dreadful hour and power 
of darkness were upon him, yet we may be 
well assured that it was no mockery ; that some- 
thing more than the mere representation of a sac- 
rifice, it was most truly and essentially a sacrifice 
itself — a full satisfaction rendered for the outrage 
that had been done upon the Lawgiver — his whole 
authority vindicated, the entire burden of his wrath 
discharged. This is enough for all the moral pur- 
poses that are to be gained by our faith in Christ's 
propitiation. It is enough that we know of the 
travail of his soul. It is enough that he exchan- 
ged places with the world he died for, and that 
what to us would have been the wretchedness of 
eternity, was all concentrated upon him, and by 
him was fully borne." # 

* Chalmers's Lectures on Romans, p. 318, 319. Carter's New- 
York edition. 



capacity of Christ's manhood. 211 



CHAPTER XV. 

Humanity of Christ had not Physical Capacities to endure all his 
Sufferings — Body and Human Soul of Christ differed in nothing 
but Holiness from those of ordinary Men — Body can suffer only 
to limited Extent — So of Human Soul — Sufferings of Christ Infi- 
nite, or, at least, beyond Mortal Endurance — Christ's Physical 
Capacities not expanded at last Passion — If so, he would not 
have Suffered in our Nature — Shifts to which Prevalent Theory 
is put to reconcile Extent of Christ's Sufferings with limited Ca- 
pacities of Humanity to suffer. 

Having thus completed our review of the dis- 
may with which Christ beheld his coming suffer- 
ings, and the perturbation which their endurance 
caused him, we may confidently deduce from the 
premises the sure conclusion that his sufferings 
were infinite ; or, if not infinite, that they inex- 
pressibly surpassed any sufferings which mortal 
man ever bore, or which the highest angel in heav- 
en, united to humanity, could have endured. We 
may now, therefore, return to the farther devel- 
opment of the principle which we laid down in a 
preceding page,* that the body and human soul 
of Christ had not physical capabilities to become 
the recipient of the amount of sufferings demon- 
strated by his unparalleled dismay at their ap- 

* See page 193. 



212 Christ's manhood not peculiar. 

proach, and his extraordinary perturbation in their 
endurance. 

As a preliminary to this branch of our argu- 
ment, we would remind the reader that the body 
and human soul of Christ differed in nothing from 
the bodies and souls of ordinary men, except in 
being sinless. This important fact rests on the 
firm basis of the Bible. The leading feature in 
the revealed plan of redemption is, that the second 
person of the Trinity should suffer in our nature. 
He would not have suffered in our nature had his 
manhood, except in its sinless character, been ei- 
ther more or less than the nature of ordinary men. 
Had he suffered in an angelic nature, or in a su- 
perhuman nature, he would not have suffered in 
our nature ; and thus the scriptural delineation of 
the atonement itself would have lost its charac- 
teristic feature. 

The suggestion so often made and repeated by 
theorists, that the body and human soul of Christ 
had peculiar susceptibilities for suffering, finds no 
support in the oracles of God. The Bible informs 
us that " Jesus increased in wisdom and stature" 
like ordinary youths. — Luke, ii., 52. But on the 
great fact of the identity of his body and human 
soul, save in their exemption from sin, with the 
bodies and souls common to our race, the Bible 



BODY LIMITED IN SUFFERING. 213 

is still more explicit. The Holy Ghost, in lan- 
guage not to be frittered away by interpretation, 
has declared, " Wherefore in all things it behooved 
him to be made like unto his brethren." — Hebrews, 
ii., 17. 

The identity between the manhood of Christ 
and our common nature being thus established, 
we may now avail ourselves of this interesting 
fact for the purpose of showing that his humanity 
had not physical capabilities to endure the weight 
of corporeal and spiritual sufferings manifestly de- 
volved on him as the substitute for the sins of the 
world. 

It is a principle of our nature, that the human 
body can, for the time, become the receptacle of 
only a given amount of suffering. Its capabilities 
of suffering are finite and limited. Those best 
schooled in the management of the rack, doubt- 
less the most formidable instrument of cruelty, 
learned, from long experience, that there was a 
point at which even fiendish malice required them 
to stop in the infliction of pain. If, in their infat- 
uated zeal, they were indiscreetly led beyond this 
point, their victim was sure to find respite in tem- 
porary insensibility. The laws of his physical na- 
ture would kindly step in to his relief. Hence the 
professors in the art of extorting human sighs and 



214 SOUL LIMITED IN SUFFERING. 

human groans were taught to resort to the more 
tedious, but sure process of lingering torments. 
Thus they were enabled to effect, by the duration 
of the suffering, what they had failed to accom- 
plish by its indiscreet intenseness. 

So of mental suffering. The capacity of the 
human mind to suffer is, like its other faculties, 
limited. It is limited by those original and inflex- 
ible principles which form the constitution of the 
mind. If the cup of affliction is full, any new 
streams of bitterness will but make it overflow. 
"When Rachel wept for her children, and refused 
to be comforted because they were not, the anni- 
hilation of half a continent, by some great convul- 
sion of nature, would not have been likely, for the 
time, to augment her griefs. Mental suffering, 
like that of the body, may be indefinitely increased 
by its protraction, not by its intensity. 

The question now directly arises whether, with 
powers limited to the ordinary standard of hu- 
manity, Christ's body and human soul had phys- 
ical capacities to become the recipient of that un- 
utterable weight of agony which it is manifest he 
endured. It is true that we cannot determine this 
question by the application of any rule deduced 
from the exact sciences. We have no balance 
for accurately weighing the powers of humanity 



MANHOOD COULD NOT SO SUFFER. 215 

to suffer ; nor could we, if we dared, apply any 
process of human calculation to measure the pre- 
cise length, and breadth, and height, and depth of 
the boundless sufferings of our Lord ; but appear- 
ances are sometimes as demonstrative as mathe- 
matics ; and when, with our vision expanded and 
sublimated by the stupendous scenes of Gethsem- 
ane and of Calvary, we direct it inward, to 
view, as through a microscope, the diminutive 
lineaments of our own material and immaterial 
natures, we are driven to the conclusion that the 
manhood of Christ (" made like unto his brethren") 
could not have been the recipient of all his illimit- 
able sufferings with a force of demonstration al- 
most as resistless as that which compels our assent 
to a proposition of Euclid. 

All must concede the propriety of the conclu- 
sion just stated, if they believe that the sufferings 
of Christ were infinite. A finite being cannot be 
made the recipient of infinite anguish in a space 
less than eternity. The infinitude of the pains of 
the lost children of our race, in the abodes of de- 
spair, will be diluted by the current of ceaseless 
ages. Should omnipotence concentrate infinite 
suffering within the compass of even a few brief 
years, humanity could no more endure it than it 
could carry the world on its shoulders. 



216 MANHOOD COULD NOT SO SUFFER: 

If the sufferings of Christ were less than infinite, 
did they not still exceed the limits of his humani- 
ty ? In answering this question in the affirmative, 
we appeal to the scriptural intimations, scattered 
through the Old and New Testaments, evincing 
the extremity of our Saviour's sufferings ; we ap- 
peal to the indications on the cross, and especially 
to those of the garden ; we invoke the bloody sweat 
of Gethsemane, " falling down to the ground" — to 
be understood, not as a delusive metaphor, but as 
a stupendous truth; not as applicable to a person 
incapacitated by disease to retain in his veins and 
arteries the circulating and vital fluid, but as ap- 
plicable to a person in perfect health. 

Bring the case to the test of experiment. Fill 
a human soul brimful, to the utmost limit of its 
physical powers, with sufferings the most concen- 
trated and intense that imagination can conceive, 
and it could never force through the pores of its 
clay tenement a bloody perspiration. For the 
truth of this, we appeal to universal history, pro- 
fane and sacred. At Gethsemane, and there alone, 
has the anguish of the spirit ever made the sym- 
pathizing and healthful body sweat, as it were, 
great drops of blood. The occurrence of this 
awful exhibition there, and there only, proves of 
itself that the agonies of the garden were the throes 
and spasms of a nature lifted, in its suffering ca- 



NOT EXPANDED FOR OCCASION. 217 

pacity, infinitely above the human soul of Christ. 
Go one step farther ; make the body a fellow in 
suffering ; after filling the human soul full of the 
keenest anguish to overflowing, load its clay sis- 
ter also with the most exquisite pains, to the ut- 
most limits of its physical powers ; and the aggre- 
gate sufferings of the doubly-laden man will prob- 
ably bear a less proportion to the awful totality 
of Christ's sufferings than the drop of the bucket 
bears to the " multitudinous sea." No imaginable 
concentration of human anguish, corporeal and 
mental, could ever have produced the appalling 
phenomenon which crimsoned the soil of Geth- 
semane. 

We may, indeed, suppose that Omnipotence, at 
the time of the last passion, might have expanded 
the capacity of the manhood of Christ to suffer to 
an almost unlimited extent ; but then he would 
not have suffered in our nature. Had the might 
of Gabriel been miraculously infused into the hu- 
manity of Christ, it would no longer have been 
our humanity. The created nature of Christ 
would have ceased to be human nature ; it would 
have become a compound of the human and the 
angelic. The characteristic feature of the atone- 
ment of the Bible would thus have been marred. 
Christ would no longer have been " in all things 
like unto his brethren." Had Christ suffered in 

T 



218 MANHOOD NOT EXPANDED. 

this mingled nature, how could he have been what 
his apostle Peter represents him to have been 
when he says, " Christ also suffered for us, leaving 
us an example V 9 — 1 Peter, ii., 21. How could he 
have left us an example, with any expectation of 
our following it, unless he had actually suffered in 
our common nature ? The supposition that he 
also suffered in his divine nature does not impair 
the efficacy of his human example. The supposi- 
tion presents to us a suffering man to imitate ; a 
suffering God to adore. 

According to this aspect of the prevalent theory? 
Christ suffered in neither his divine nor human na- 
ture, but in a compound nature specially wrought 
out for the occasion, and nowhere intimated in the 
Bible. An angel appeared in the Garden of Geth- 
semane. But angel visits, while they impart con- 
solation and strengthen faith, do not change the 
nature of the being visited. The faithful Abra- 
ham and the wrestling Jacob remained unaltered 
at the departure of their celestial visitant, except 
in increase of holiness. We do not infer that the 
" strengthening" envoy of the garden added any- 
thing to the physical capabilities of the sufferer for 
the endurance of pain. To impart to an ordinary 
man the strength of Samson, by miraculous inter- 
position, to prepare him for some great bodily 
feat, would be to effect a change of his corporeal 



SHIFTS OF THEORY. 219 

nature. To have imparted to the human soul of 
Christ, by miraculous interposition, the strength 
and fortitude of an archangel, to prepare him for 
the endurance of his last passion, would have been 
to effect a change in the elements of the incor- 
poreal portion of his humanity. He would then 
rather have taken on him " the nature of angels," 
than have remained of the unmixed " seed of Abra- 
ham." — Hebrews, ii., 16. 

To reconcile the magnitude of Christ's suffer- 
ings with the limited capabilities of humanity to 
suffer, has ever been one of the most trying shifts 
of the prevalent theory. One class of its advo- 
cates, as has already appeared, have imagined 
that the manhood of Christ was mysteriously en- 
dowed with superhuman susceptibilities and pow- 
ers of sufferance ; but this airy phantom has not 
a scriptural intimation on which to perch itself. 
Another class of its adherents have sought to 
solve the phenomenon by depreciating the magni- 
tude of the mediatorial sufferings. Whitby, the 
commentator, with a reckless hand, has undertaken 
to cut the Gordian knot, which he could not untie, 
by sinking to corporeal pains the expiatory ago- 
nies of the Son of God. Even the learned, elo- 
quent, and devout D wight felt himself constrained 
to say that " the degree of suffering which Christ 
underwent in making the atonement was far in- 



220 CHRIST S SUFFERING EXPLAINED 

ferior to that which will be experienced by an in- 
dividual sufferer beyond the grave." So the Her- 
culean intellect of the profound author of the 
" Freedom of the Will" was obliged to seek refuge 
in the same hypothesis.* 

Such depreciation of the price of redemption is 
without scriptural authority. The Bible nowhere 
intimates such a paucity of mediatorial sufferings ; 
nor can reason evince the sufficiency of such lim- 
ited sufferings to redeem a world by any process 
of human arithmetic. The debts of the redeemed 
to the exchequer of heaven were infinite, or, rather, 
they consisted of a countless number of infinitudes ; 
for each of the redeemed owed, for his single 
self, an infinite debt. Christ became the substi- 
tuted, the sole paymaster. The exchequer of 
heaven could receive nothing less than full pay- 
ment, to the uttermost farthing. Any composi- 
tion 5 or compromise, or partial satisfaction would 
have been more derogatory to infinite justice than 
a free forgiveness of the debts by one spontaneous 
act of flexible, yielding grace. Christ paid the 
debts of the redeemed in full. He paid in kind ; 
in the same coin in which the redeemed must have 
paid. He substituted for their sufferings his own. 

* Whitby's Comments on Matthew, xxvi., 38 ; Dwight's Theology, 
vol. ii., p. 217 ; Edward's Works, vol. viii., p. 176, 177. New- York, 
1830. 



BY PARTICIPATION OF GODHEAD. 221 

Christ, then, must have suffered as much as all the 
redeemed, but for him, would have suffered col- 
lectively, pang for pang, spasm for spasm, sigh for 
sigh, groan for groan ; he must have suffered, not 
only infinitely, but the infinitude of his suffering 
must have been multiplied by the number of the 
countless redeemed ; unless such deficiency as ex- 
isted in the quantity of his suffering, compared 
with what would have been the aggregate suffer- 
ings of the redeemed, was made up by the tran- 
scendent superiority of its quality. 

If we were permitted to believe that the divinity 
of Christ actually participated in his sufferings, 
then, indeed, the difficulty connected with their 
numerical quantity might be mitigated, and per- 
haps removed. The participation of his divinity 
in his sufferings might possibly have supplied their 
deficiency in quantity, compared with what the 
redeemed must have endured, by imparting to 
them an infinitely enhanced value. But the advo- 
cates of the prevalent theory, through all their 
classes, utterly deny that the divinity of Christ 
actually participated in his expiatory sufferings. 
To exclude the belief that his divinity actually suf- 
fered has been their object for fifteen centuries. 
To this object they have clung with a tenacity 

which time has not been able to loosen. 

T 2 



222 Christ's suffering explaned 

Yet does the prevalent theory require, for its 
vital principle, that there should have been an in- 
fusion of the Godhead into the mediatorial suffer- 
ings. This infusion we give in the awful fact that 
the divinity of Christ actually participated in all 
he underwent. The prevalent theory seeks to 
impart the divine infusion by supposing that the 
redeeming man suffered actually, and the redeem- 
ing God constructively. A preliminary objection 
to this supposition is, that it lacks scriptural sup- 
port. The Bible, from its first verse to its last, 
gives no such intimation. It rests on human au- 
thority alone. The persons of the glorious Trin- 
ity are not wont to act constructively. Whatever 
they do, they do actually. It was not construct- 
ively that the Son of God created the worlds. It 
is not constructively that he will, one day, judge 
the quick and the dead. His heaven and his hell 
are not constructive. Nor was it merely con- 
structively that his ethereal essence tasted "of 
death for every man." 

The prevalent theory has a navigation embar- 
rassed with more real obstacles than those ima- 
gined to inhibit the passage of the Sicilian strait 
when haunted by the fabled terrors of early my- 
thology. When it raises to their proper altitude 
its conceptions of the infinite magnitude of the 
mediatorial agonies, it encounters the insuperable 



BY PARTICIPATION OF GODHEAD. 223 

difficulties arising from the limited capacities of 
humanity to suffer. If it lowers its views to the 
standard of humanity's limited powers, its meager 
estimate of the atoning sufferings affords but scanty 
aliment for the redemption of a world. The the- 
ory has its Scylla on the one side, and its Charyb- 
dis on the other. Nothing but the unequalled, 
though noiseless skill of its navigators has hitherto 
saved it from shipwreck. 

Whichever way we wander, we are thus drawn 
back to the great central truth that the second 
person of the Trinity, clothed in manhood, suffer- 
ed and died, as well in his ethereal essence as in 
his human nature, for the salvation of man. This 
august truth cannot, indeed, fully unravel the 
" mystery of godliness." That still remains, as it 
was beheld by the apostle and the angels, shroud- 
ed in its own ineffable majesty, " high and lifted 
up" above the ken of mortal scrutiny ; but it 
clears the spiritual horizon of the vapours and 
clouds which human theories have congregated 
there. If it were believed that a God, made sin for 
sinners, was just about to meet the " fierceness and 
wrath" of an avenging God, the scene at Gethsem- 
ane, though towering to the third heaven in in- 
terest and grandeur, would lose some of its mar- 
vels. The bloody perspiration forcing itself 
through the corporeal substance of the incarnate, 



224 SUFFERING UNIMAGINABLE. 

self-devoted Deity ; the shaking, almost to anni- 
hilation, of " the temple of his body ;" the momen- 
tary, eager, soul-touching supplication that, if pos- 
sible, the cup might pass from him ; the appear- 
ance of the " strengthening" envoy from the ce- 
lestial court, are what even the finite imagination 
might shadow forth as the appropriate preludes 
of an exhibition, from which the dismayed sun fled 
away. 

The explanation unfolded by this august central 
truth, though it may not, durst not, cannot draw 
fully aside the veil of the inner sanctuary, where 
" the chastisement of our peace was upon Him" 
who created the worlds, yet indicates to our ado- 
ring vision the viewless, hidden cause, from whose 
mighty workings came that wondrous contrast 
between the penitent, joyous, exulting malefactor, 
and the suffering, writhing, sinking Deity by his 
side ; extorting from his bursting spirit the pier- 
cing cry sent up to the Ancient of Days, " My 
God ! my God ! why hast thou forsaken me V 9 

If the redeeming God suffered in his divine es- 
sence, he must have suffered to a degree surpass- 
ing the apprehension of mortal man ; probably 
surpassing the comprehension of the brightest arch- 
angel. He would not have healed " slightly the 
hurt of the daughter of his people." — Jeremiah, vi., 



MODE NOT KNOWN. 225 

14. He would not, by the paucity of the expiatory 
sufferings, have sunk, in the estimation of created 
intelligences, the dignity of his own divine law. 
Such sufferings must have been felt by the re- 
deeming God as only a God has capacity to feel. 
If they did not pierce the very core of his divine 
heart, they might have lacked full atoning merit. 
They might have detracted from the grandeur of 
the Godhead ; they might not have surpassed in 
magnificence the glory of the created worlds ; 
they might have failed to form the brightest crown 
of Him who " wears on his head many crowns." 
And if, indeed, the God thus suffered, we might 
have expected that the near approach of his infi- 
nite agonies would have caused anticipations new 
and " strange" in the flight of eternal ages. We 
need not be surprised that their actual occurrence 
rent asunder the solid rocks, and convulsed to its 
centre the firm-seated, yet shuddering earth. 

The precise mode in which the uncreated Son 
suffered in his ethereal essence to atone for the 
sins of our world we know not, nor dare we ir- 
reverently inquire. The stupendous fact of his 
own vicarious suffering is, of itself, the all-suffi- 
cient rock of Christian hope and Christian confi- 
dence. Its mode, if communicable to mortal ap- 
prehension, infinite wisdom has not seen fit to re- 
veal. Systems of theism, manufactured in the 



226 BIBLE FEEDS NOT CURIOSITY. 

laboratories of earth, ever abound in minute de- 
tails, designed to lure the imagination and to grat- 
ify the longing inquisitiveness of our fallen race, 
to probe the secrets of the " world unknown." 
Such was the mythology of classic antiquity, with 
its poetic gods, its poetic heaven, and its poetic 
hell. Such is the Koran of Mohammed, with its 
voluptuous paradise. 

Such is not the Bible of the true God. Its rev- 
elations, like the supplies of miraculous food to the 
wayfaring Israelites, are just sufficient for our 
spiritual wants. There is no lack, no redundan- 
cy. The Bible contains ample nutriment for the 
immortal soul ; not a jot of aliment for idle curi- 
osity. Any surplus of revealed communications 
might be but a receptacle for the worms of po- 
lemic speculation. — Exodus, xvi., 20. This exact 
economy of its revelations is a distinguishing char- 
acteristic of scripture, strongly indicative of its 
celestial parentage. The scripture is its own best 
witness. The stars of the firmament and the Bi- 
ble of our closets bear upon their faces the like 
inherent demonstration that their architect is di- 
vine. 



BAPTISM TO BE BAPTIZED WITH. 227 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Christ's Anticipations of last Passion previous to Night of Gethsem- 
ane — Luke, xii., 49-51 : " I have a baptism to be baptized with — 
John, xii., 27, 28: "Now is my soul troubled" — John, xiii., 21: 
"He was troubled in spirit"— Hebrews, v., 7, 8: "When he had 
offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears" 
— Objection answered arising from Divine Prescience — Progress 
of Christ's Anticipations. 

Previous to the night of Gethsemane, the ap- 
prehension of his approaching suffering had, more 
than once, visibly affected the incarnate God. 
The first passage illustrating this truth is the fol- 
lowing : "lam come to send fire on the earth ; 
and what will I, if it be already kindled ?" — Luke, 
xii., 49. "But I have a baptism to be baptized 
with ; and how am I straitened till it be accom- 
plished !" — Luke, xii., 50. "Suppose ye that I 
am come to give peace on the earth ? I tell you, 
Nay; but rather division." — Luke, xii., 51. The 
whole passage has been transcribed, with a view 
the better to exhibit, in all its potency, the full 
meaning of the fiftieth verse. The speaker was 
Christ. The dreaded baptism was his last pas- 
sion. Who was "straitened" until the baptism 
should be accomplished ? Was it the man only ? 
or was the indwelling God also " straitened V 9 
Did the distressing apprehension pervade the 



228 BAPTISM TO BE BAPTIZED WITH. 

whole self of the divine speaker? or did it touch 
only his manhood, that finite speck, which bore a 
less proportion to the majestic whole than the 
glow-worm bears to the sun in the firmament ? 

In the forty-ninth and fifty-first verses his God- 
head was clearly the paramount theme of the di- 
vine speaker. He adverted to his having " come" 
into the world ; manifestly referring to his advent 
as the second person of the Trinity. He announ- 
ced one of the effects of his having " come" into 
the world. His advent was to " send fire" and 
engender " division" on the earth. The foretold 
" shaking of the nations" was to be effected, not 
by the meek and pacific son of Mary, but by the 
almighty power of the indwelling God. The pier- 
cing " division" created by the Gospel pervaded 
and severed the sinews, and arteries, and very 
heart of the social world. A fire was kindled on 
the day of Pentecost, whose mighty conflagration 
scarcely ceased to rage until the faith of the fish- 
ermen had fixed its sandalled foot on the throne 
of the Caesars. This triumph of the religion of 
the cross over the marshalled powers of unbeliev- 
ing man, armed with the terrors of persecution, 
headed by the prince of darkness, and re-enforced 
by all his legions, was, perhaps, the most stupen- 
dous miracle ever displayed by him who came 
" to send fire on the earth." 



BAPTISM TO BE BAPTIZED WITH. 229 

If, then, in the forty-ninth and fifty-first verses 
of this memorable passage, the Godhead of the 
divine speaker was thus the almost exclusive 
theme, is it indeed true that, in the intervening, or 
fiftieth verse, it became, as it were, utterly merged 
in the little atom of his manhood ! Did the God- 
head suddenly pass, in the continuous discourse, 
under a total eclipse at the end of the forty-ninth 
verse, which eclipse as suddenly disappeared at 
the beginning of the fifty-first ? Or, to drop the 
figures, did the incarnate God, at the commence- 
ment of the fiftieth verse, abruptly descend from 
his divinity to his mere manhood, and as abruptly 
reascend, at the end of that verse, from his mere 
manhood back to his divinity ? 

Such a double transition, so instantaneously re- 
peated, would have seemed almost a phenomenon, 
had we been forced to yield our credence to its 
existence, by intrinsic indications that such was 
the intention of the speaker ; but there are no such 
indications on the face or in the relations of the 
passage. The divine speaker passed through 
these contiguous and kindred verses, himself des- 
ignated in each by the same personal pronoun " I " 
without the slightest intimation of any change in 
the natures of which he spoke. The subject rep- 
resented by that personal pronoun formed, in each 
of the three verses, the one undivided and indi- 

U 



230 BAPTISM TO BE BAPTIZED WITH. 

visible theme. If his Godhead was the chief agent 
in sending " fire" and engendering " division" on 
the earth, his Godhead was to be the chief recipi- 
ent of the dreaded " baptism." 

To impute to the speaking God a double change 
of subject, radical and vast as the change from 
the infinite to the finite, and thence back again 
from the finite to the infinite, affecting, too, his 
own united being, within the compass of this brief 
passage, without a shadow of change in the lan- 
guage which his wisdom chose, would seem, in- 
deed, like the mere dream of fancy ; or, if we are 
obliged to view it as a daylight and waking the- 
ory, we cannot but regard it as one of the boldest 
efforts of that bold hypothesis, " God is impassi- 
ble." Such a dream, or such a theory, if so we 
must call it, should find no registered place among 
the fundamental articles of Christian faith. 

If, then, we may justly infer from the language 
of Christ, in the fiftieth verse of the passage un- 
der review, compared with his language in the 
german verses, which go before and after it, that 
he intended to comprehend in that verse, as well 
as in the other two, both of his united natures, we 
have the conclusive authority of the Son of God, 
that his divinity as well as his manhood was 



NOW IS MY SOUL TROUBLED. 231 

" straitened" by the dread of the coming " bap- 
tism." 

The next passage showing that the dismay of 
the incarnate God, caused by his approaching suf- 
ferings, had anticipated the scene of the garden, 
is the following : " Now is my soul troubled ; and 
what shall I say ? Father, save me from this 
hour : but for this cause came I unto this hour." 
— John, xii., 27. What soul was troubled ? The 
prevalent theory would say that it was the mere 
human soul of the divine victim. So said not the 
divine victim himself. His declaration, in its plain 
and obvious import, comprehended his whole uni- 
ted spirituality. The limiting adjective " human" 
fell not from the lips of the incarnate God. It is 
the interpolation of earth. 

" Father, save me from this hour : but for this 
cause came I unto this hour." The august Com- 
er was the second person of the Trinity. Upon 
his advent he had received the " body" prepared 
for him, and thus " manifest in the flesh" had meek- 
ly awaited that hour of hours. But upon tfie 
near approach of that tremendous hour, new and 
" strange" in the annals of eternity, when God the 
Father was to pour on God the Son, made sin for 
sinners, the storm of infinite wrath, compounded 
of the " multitudinous" transgressions of all the re- 



232 HE WAS TROUBLED IN SPIRIT. 

deemed, the self-devoted victim, almighty as he 
was, for a moment stood appalled. " Father, save 
me from this hour." The august Comer and the 
momentary Supplicant were one, designated by the 
little pronouns " I" and " me." Both pronouns re- 
ferred to the self-same Being ; both referred to 
the totality of that Being ; both included within 
their illimitable import the whole incarnate Dei- 
ty. The coming God, the " troubled" God, the 
supplicating God were identical. In each stage 
of the stupendous action the God was the chief 
Actor, the man but the humble adjunct. 

Farther proof that, of Christ's painful anticipa- 
tions, the garden was not the first witnesses to be 
found in the following passage : " When Jesus had 
thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, 
and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one 
of you shall betray me." — John, xiii., 21. This 
passage has its date just after our Lord's institu- 
tion of the sacramental supper, and on the same 
night in which his prediction of the treason of one 
of his disciples was fulfilled. The Greek word 
here translated " spirit" is used in the Bible, as 
well as the dictionary, in opposition to matter. Its 
scriptural, as well as its lexicographic meaning, is 
" immaterial substance." It denotes animated im- 
materiality, whether found in man, in angels, or in 
the Godhead. Take the following specimens of its 



HE WAS TROUBLED IN SPIRIT. 233 

application to the divine essence. St. Peter said 
of Christ : " Being put to death in the flesh, but 
quickened by the Spirit ;" meaning, doubtless, by 
the quickening Spirit the Spirit of the Omnipotent. 
— 1 Peter, iii., 18. The "Alpha and the Omega," 
who appeared to his beloved disciple in the first 
three chapters of Revelation, styled himself the 
" Spirit." " Hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
Churches." — Revelation, ii., 17. " God is a Spir- 
it," declared the same inspired disciple. — John, 
iv., 24. 

" He was troubled in spirit." The term " spir- 
it" was clearly applicable, according to its scrip- 
tural meaning, to his ethereal essence ; it was just 
as applicable to his ethereal essence as to his hu- 
man intellect. Inspiration employed a term whose 
natural boundaries included both. To exclude 
his Godhead would be doing violence to those 
natural boundaries. It would be reducing them, 
by force and arms, from their inherent infinitude 
down to the finite compass of humanity. Inspi- 
ration interposed no discrimination between the 
human intellect and the ethereal essence of Christ. 
If we are permitted to understand the term as in- 
spiration has elsewhere taught us to understand it, 
his whole immaterial being, in both its elements, 
" was troubled." We are ignorant of any prin- 
ciple of grammar or of logic by which human 

U2 



234 THE TEARFUL SUPPLICANT 

reason can interpose any discriminating barrier. 
Yet has the theory of presuming man dared to 
lay down on the scriptural map a line of demar- 
cation, impassable as the walls of heaven, where 
no line of demarcation has been marked by the 
Holy Ghost. It has dared to affirm that inspira- 
tion was so absorbed in the human as to lose 
sight of the divine Spirit of the incarnate God. 

In this connexion, a passage from one of the 
epistles, manifestly referring to the agonies of 
Christ at Gethsemane, may advantageously be in- 
troduced : " Who in the days of his flesh, when 
he had offered up prayers and supplications, with 
strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able 
to save him from death, and was heard in that he 
feared ; though he were a Son, yet learned he 
obedience by the things which he suffered." — 
Hebrews, v., 7, 8. Who was the supplicant of 
this passage that " offered up prayers and suppli- 
cations with strong crying and tears?" It was 
certainly Christ. In what nature did he thus ag- 
onizingly supplicate? We suppose in both his 
natures ; especially in his paramount, or divine 
nature. 

The earnest supplicant was distinguished, in 
the passage, by two characteristic marks : he was 
" a Son," the eternal Son ; and he thus strongly 



IN THE DAYS OF HIS FLESH. 235 

supplicated " in the days of his flesh ;" that is to 
say, in the days of his manhood on earth. The 
eternal Sonship of the supplicant was not pred- 
icate of the human progeny of Mary ; nor were 
the expressions, "in the days of his flesh." The 
phrase, " in the days of his flesh," implies that 
there had been a time when the tearful supplicant 
had not been in the flesh ; not clothed in human 
nature ; when he had existed in another mode or 
state of being. 4j} 

But the manhood of Christ had never been out 
of the flesh. It was created in the flesh ; it was 
in the flesh in the manger ; it was in the flesh on 
the cross ; it was in the flesh, awaiting its quick- 
returning spirit, in the tomb of Joseph ; it is in the 
flesh on the right hand of God. It was only to 
the divinity of Christ that the inspired writer to 
the Hebrews could have applied the descriptive 
peculiarity, " in the days of his flesh." That was, 
indeed, a memorable era in the eternity of the sec- 
ond person of the Trinity. He had been a disim- 
bodied and glorious spirit from everlasting. He 
first came into the flesh when he made himself in- 
carnate. The days of the God Christ Jesus on 
earth were emphatically and descriptively " the 
days of his flesh." But the phrase would have 
been unmeaning if applied to the man Christ Je- 
sus. It would have marked no era in his existence. 



236 THE TEARFUL SUPPLICANT. 

We have it, then, established by two distin- 
guishing and unerring badges, that the Supplicant 
in the passage from Hebrews was npt simply the 
human offspring of the Virgin. His " prayers and 
supplications with strong crying and tears" were 
not the mere ebullitions of human frailty. The 
Supplicant was the eternal Son of God. To him 
pertained a state of antecedent existence, not com- 
prehended " in the days of his flesh." The Sup- 
plicant, then, was the second, th^ incarnate per- 
son of the Trinity. The imploring voice ; the 
strong crying ; the tears ; the spirit which prompt- 
ed that crying and those tears, were his. He 
who " feared" was he who had made the worlds. 
In this fearing, deprecatory scene of the mediato- 
rial drama the divinity predominated as much as 
it did in the stupendous scene where the " five 
barley loaves and two small fishes" were made 
the superabundant aliment of five thousand fam- 
ished persons. 

But was it, indeed, the second person of the 
Trinity who "offered up prayers and supplica- 
tions with strong crying and tears," and " was 
heard in that he feared ?" Let Gethsemane an- 
swer the inquiry. Let the garden, where, " being 
in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his 
sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling 
down to the ground," reveal the awful truth. Let 



ONE ETERNAL NOW. 237 

the angel respond who appeared unto him " from 
heaven, strengthening" the "fearing," the almost 
sinking God. 

We have heard it orally objected that if, at the 
approach of Christ's passion, the dismay caused 
by its anticipation affected his divine nature, the 
same anticipation must equally have affected his 
divinity before it became incarnate ; that to the 
divine mind the past and the future are one con- 
centrated now ; that to Him who fills eternity 
the anticipation of the cross was just as vivid be- 
fore the creation of the worlds as it was in the 
garden ; that our doctrine, therefore, would con- 
vert the illimitable pre-existence of the Son of 
God into one saddened, unbroken Gethsemane. 

To this objection we have a ready response. 
If we have failed to show, by scriptural evidence, 
that the divinity of Christ shared in the dismay 
caused by his approaching suffering, then this par- 
ticular branch of our argument fails of itself. It 
needs not to be assailed by extraneous objection ; 
it sinks under the burden of its own weight ; its 
foundation is ascertained to be laid in unstable 
sand. But if we have succeeded in showing, by 
scriptural proofs, that the divinity of Christ parti- 
cipated in the dismay caused by his coming pas- 
sion, then is our position fixed upon a rock. Un- 



238 PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE DIFFER. 

derneath it is the everlasting foundation of the Bi- 
ble. And because human reason, dimly peering 
through its earthy telescope, cannot scan the vast 
dimensions of that infinite Essence " manifest in 
the flesh," so as to ascertain with precision how 
his divine nature could, in harmony with all his 
attributes, have partaken of the dismay caused by 
the anticipated outpouring of his Father's wrath, 
shall human reason, thus thwarted by the diminu- 
tiveness of its own powers of vision, venture bold- 
ly to repudiate a doctrine proved to be scriptural, 
and so deeply interesting to Christian faith ? 

Other answers to the objection may be given. 
The supposition that the past eternity and the 
future eternity are, to the divine mind, one con- 
centrated now, rests not on scriptural authority. 
It is based on metaphysical speculation. Human 
reason has no right to speculate concerning the 
unrevealed mysteries of God ; to convert his eter- 
nity into one monotonous now ; to deprive him of 
the joys of retrospect, and the delights of anticipa- 
tion. The past and the future are essentially dif- 
ferent from the present, in the nature of things. 
The Omnipotent could not, by the word of his 
power, make them identical, without violating the 
inflexible laws of his empire, any more than he 
could make two and two amount to five. That 
past things and future things should be present 



GOD SEES THINGS AS THEY ARE. 239 

things is a physical contradiction. The Son of 
God is not now creating the worlds ; he is not 
now suspended on the cross ; he is not now judg- 
ing the quick and the dead. To view those widely 
separated events as contemporaneous, would be to 
view them falsely. 

The God of truth sees things as they are. He 
views the past as gone, the future as to come, the 
present alone as actually present. To his mind 
the deluge is not now riding in triumph over the 
tops of the mountains ; to his mind the elements 
are not now melting with fervent heat. Progres- 
sion is a fundamental principle of God's empire, 
and progressive events are viewed as progressive 
by the infinitely wise Legislator. The reckless 
violation of all laws by the afterward penitent 
malefactor, his belief with the heart when apostles 
fled, and his repose in paradise on the bosom of 
his redeeming God, were not simultaneous events 
in the estimation of the dwellers upon the earth, 
or in the view of Him who " inhabiteth eternity." 

The memory of the Deity, doubtless, reaches 
back to the earliest past ; his prescience reaches 
forward to the latest future. Eternity and im- 
mensity have no recesses hidden from omniscience. 
How vivid may be his anticipations of coming 
events, brought home by his unerring prescience, 



240 Christ's prospective dismay 

the Bible has not told us with perfect distinctness. 
On this sacred theme we may, perhaps, without 
irreverence, draw some twilight imaginings from 
the analogy of his earthly substitute, made in his 
own image, and after his own likeness, and into 
whose nostrils he breathed " the breath of life." 
To a good man it may be revealed, as it was to 
Peter, that a violent death awaits him. The con- 
viction of his bitter doom is sure ; the cruel death 
dwells ever in his conscious breast. Yet does not 
its sting disturb his happiness or serenity, until the 
hour draws nigh for the triumph of the king of 
terrors. 

So the Bible shadows forth the progressive in- 
tenseness of the anticipations of the Son of God, 
caused by his approaching suffering. When he 
foretold his passion first, it produced in him little 
seeming emotion. "From that time forth began 
Jesus to show unto his disciples how he must go 
unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things." — Mat- 
thew, xvi., 21. "And he began to teach them 
that the Son of man must suffer many things." — 
Mark, viii., 31. A little farther onward, in Luke, 
he declared, " But I have a baptism to be baptized 
with, and how am I straitened till it be accom- 
plished." Still onward, in John, he exclaimed, 
" Now is my soul troubled ; and what shall I say ? 
Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause 



WAS PROGRESSIVE. 241 

came I unto this hour." And at Gethsemane, 
when the dreaded " baptism," the tremendous 
" hour" was just at hand, " being in an agony," he 
sweat " as it were great drops of blood, falling 
down to the ground." 

X 



242 PROOFS FROM OLD TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Proofs of Divinity of Christ's Sufferings derived from Old Testa- 
ment — Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah — Isaiah, lxiii. : " I have trod- 
den the wine-press alone" — Zechariah, xiii., 7 : " Awake, O sword, 
against my Shepherd" — Zechariah, xii., 10 : " And they shall look 
-upon Me, whom they have pierced." 

In the progress of our argument, we have hith- 
erto confined ourselves to evidence deduced from 
the New Testament. But the Old Testament is 
not to be overlooked or undervalued. Though its 
inspired patriarchs and prophets saw as " through 
a glass darkly," yet does the wonderful fulfilment 
of their inspired visions afford one of the most 
striking proofs of the verity of our holy religion. 
The Old Testament shadows forth the Messiah 
to come in colours not to be mistaken. It plainly 
intimates his miraculous conception ; it places the 
glorious truth of his divinity beyond peradventure ; 
it announces him as a sufferer for the sins of others 
in terms peculiar and significant ; and, when it 
thus alludes to him as a sufferer, it limits not his 
sufferings to a single department of his being ; it 
speaks of him, not as a partial, but as a general 
sufferer. The prevalent theory of later times, that 
the sufferings of Christ were confined to his hu- 
manitv, finds no countenance in the Old Testa- 



FIFTY-THIRD CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. 243 

ment. The Old Testament leaves us to believe 
that the expected Messiah would suffer in the same 
undivided and indivisible natures in which he was 
to be born. 

The last three verses of the fifty-second chapter 
of Isaiah, and the whole of the fifty-third chapter 
of that sublimest of the sons of men, have Christ 
for their absorbing theme. Their reference to the 
Messiah who was to come is so palpable that, in 
reading the passages, we may consider the name 
of Christ as actually substituted for the nameless 
sufferer, whose heart-touching story is there told 
with a pathos not to be found in the " multitudi- 
nous" volumes of uninspired lore. With a pen 
dipped in his tears, the rapt prophet recounted the 
imputed imperfections and outward pangs of his 
beloved Saviour ; his marred visage ; his want of 
form and comeliness to the carnal eye ; his wounds 
for our transgressions ; his bruises for our iniqui- 
ties ; his stripes by which we are healed. But 
when he drew near to the furnace of expiatory 
suffering burning within, pervading the spiritual 
elements of the incarnate God in the most inac- 
cessible recesses of his sacred being, the prophet's 
powers of expression, copious as they were, seem- 
ed utterly inadequate to the overpowering thoughts 
that were hovering around him. He could but 
say, " His soul" shall be made " an offering for 



244 TERM SOUL APPLIED TO GOD. 

sin 5* " he shall pouj out his soul unto death f " he 
shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be 
satisfied." — Isaiah, liii., 10-12. 

The Hebrew word here translated " soul" is 
of most capacious import. It signifies breathing, 
living immateriality, wherever found. In the first 
chapter of his inspired history, Moses applied this 
Hebrew term to designate the vital principle of 
the lower ranks of animated nature, though our 
translators have there rendered it " creature." — 
Genesis, i., 24. The royal psalmist used this iden- 
tical Hebrew word to denote the ethereal essence 
of the Deity. " The Lord trieth the righteous : 
but the wicked and him that loveth violence his 
soul hateth." — Psalm xi., 5. The same Hebrew 
word was used for the same purpose in Judges. 
" And they put away the strange gods from among 
them, and served the Lord : and his soul was 
grieved for the misery of Israel."— Judges, x., 16. 
The same Hebrew word was also twice used in 
Jeremiah to express the ethereal essence of God. 
" Shall I not visit for these things ? saith the Lord ; 
and shall not my soul be avenged on such a na- 
tion as this ?" — Jeremiah, v., 9. " Yea, I" (the 
Lord) " will rejoice over them to do them good, 
and I will plant them in this land assuredly with 
my whole heart and with my whole soul." — Jer- 
emiah, xxxii., 41. 



SOUL INCLUDED DIVINE ESSENCE. 245 

When Isaiah appropriated the same Hebrew- 
term to the expected Messiah ; the predicted Im- 
manuel ; the " child" that should be born ; the " son" 
that should be given ; whose name should be call- 
ed " Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the 
everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace," he must 
have meant to use the term in as comprehensive 
a sense as it was used by his brother-prophets. 
He must have intended to designate the whole 
breathing, animated, living immateriality of the 
God " manifest in the flesh," whose advent had, 
from the creation, formed the glowing theme of 
inspired prediction and heaven-taught song. The 
Hebrew word is used by the evangelical prophet 
without stint or limitation. The human soul of 
the anticipated Messiah, the "Wonderful, Counsel- 
lor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father," was 
so small a speck in the distant and boundless hori- 
zon of his united and infinite spirituality as scarce- 
ly to engage, much less to absorb the expanded 
vision of the rapt seer. 

The Prophet Isaiah must, then, be understood 
as saying, that the whole immaterial nature of 
Christ should be made an offering for sin ; that 
his whole immaterial nature should be poured out 
unto death ; that he should see of the travail of 
his whole immaterial nature and be satisfied. If 
any biblical critic should wish to limit the Hebrew 

X2 



246 TREADER OF WINE-PRESS. 

word translated " soul" to the mere human soul 
of Christ, let him test the accuracy of his criticism 
by actually inserting before the substantive " soul," 
as often as it is here repeated, the adjective " hu- 
man." We do not perceive how the critic can 
object to this test ; for, if the adjective is to be si- 
lently incorporated by intendment, it might as well 
be actually incorporated by an overt act. We 
have already alluded to this test as applicable to 
passages in the New Testament ; but its impor- 
tance seems to justify its repetition here. 

The prophecy of Isaiah contains other passa- 
ges bearing on our subject. We select one of 
them : " I have trodden the wine-press alone." — 
Isaiah, lxiii., 3. What was the wine-press thus 
trodden ? It was not the wine-press of some ter- 
restrial vintage. It was, what it is elsewhere 
called in scripture, " the wine-press of the fierce- 
ness and wrath of Almighty God." — Revelation, 
xix., 15. Who was he who trod this wine-press 
alone ? It was he " that cometh from Edom, with 
dyed garments from Bozrah ;" " travelling in the 
greatness of his strength." 

"I have trodden the wine-press alone" was a 
declaration of too lofty and awful an import to 
have been designed by the Holy Ghost for the 
" meek and lowly" human son of the Virgin. The 



TREADER OF WINE-PRESS. 247 

solitary Treader of" the wine-press of the fierce- 
ness and wrath of Almighty God" was the second 
person of the Trinity, arrayed, indeed, in the ha- 
biliments of manhood. None but a God could 
have trodden the terrible wine-press of the wrath 
of God. The human son of Mary had not phys- 
ical capabilities to tread this wine-press alone ; 
and had his humanity been expanded for the aw- 
ful event by the omnipotence of its indwelling 
God, it would thenceforth have ceased to be the 
humanity of our common race. 

The Treader of the wine-press had trodden it 
alone. If the man had been its treader, strength- 
ened by the divinity within, solitariness could not 
have been predicated of him. He is not alone 
who knows himself to be attended and supported 
by an indwelling Deity. Gabriel is not alone, 
though, apart from his fellow-angels, he may stand 
in more close attendance on the inaccessible maj- 
esty of the Highest. The three holy men, " upon 
whose bodies the fire had no power," were not 
alone in the Babylonian furnace. There was a 
fourth present ; " and the form of the fourth" was 
" like the Son of God." He walked with them 
through the flames, and saved them untouched by 
the conflagration. Well was it said of them that 
they were not alone. — Daniel, iii., 25, 27. He 
who trod the wine-press alone, clothed in his gar- 



248 AWAKE SWORD AGAINST SHEPHERD. 

ment of flesh, was none other than he who, in the 
beginning, raised his solitary trumpet note, and 
behold, the dark profound straightway beamed 
with joyous light. 

We are not ignorant that the Treader of the 
wine-press is generally supposed, by the advocates 
of the prevalent theory, to have been, not the suf- 
fering Christ, but Christ the avenger. We have 
the misfortune to differ from them in this, as in oth- 
er conclusions. We may here be wrong. If so, 
the reader has only to subtract from the sum-total 
of our scriptural proofs this single item. We are 
confident that the aggregate of our proofs draw r n 
from Holy Writ may well sustain this insulated 
subtraction. 

The following passage carries on its face its 
own demonstration : " Awake, O sword, against 
my shepherd, and against the man that is my fel- 
low, saith the Lord of Hosts : smite the shepherd, 
and the sheep shall be scattered." — Zechariah, 
xiii., 7. In this sublime and wonderful passage, 
the speaker is the infinite Father. The Son had 
been speaking in the preceding chapter under the 
name of the " Lord ;" but in this passage the Father 
appeared as the speaker, by the appellation of the 
" Lord of Hosts." What was the subject to be 
smitten ? To show that it was to be the Christ, 



AWAKE SWORD AGAINST SHEPHERD. 249 

we need scarcely refer to Matthew, xxvl, 31 ; 
Mark, xiv., 27. The face of the passage itself 
demonstrates, not only that the Father was the 
speaker, but also that the subject to be smitten 
was the incarnate Son. In what nature was the 
incarnate Son to be smitten ? Was it in his two 
united natures, or in one of them only, leaving the 
other altogether scathless ? Our opponents allege 
that the subject to be smitten was the mere hu- 
manity of the Son incarnate. This they are obli- 
ged to allege ; for if the smiting was but to touch 
the divine nature of the incarnate God, their the- 
ory must utterly fail. 

We suppose that the humanity of the incarnate 
Son was not to be the sole subject of the smiting. 
The mere humanity of the child of the Virgin 
was not the fellow of the Highest. The fellow 
of the everlasting Father, like his infinite self, must 
have been one who " inhabiteth eternity" — the 
eternity of the past as well as the eternity of the 
future. Of all the wonders of the vast creation, 
visible or invisible, not the least is the wonder, oft- 
en pressed on our contemplations, of the exact 
economy of the Almighty Creator, in his use of 
means to accomplish his wise and gracious ends. 
The energies invoked, like the manna of the Des- 
ert, are always just sufficient ; there is nothing 
wanting, nothing to spare. The wastefulness of 



250 AWAKE SWORD AGAINST SHEPHERD. 

human prodigality can find no precedent or coun- 
tenance in the example of the Highest. And did 
he, so wisely provident of the resources even of 
his own exhaustless and infinite treasury, indeed 
awaken from its repose his own almighty sword 
— the highest resort of avenging omnipotence — 
only to smite the frail humanity of the man of 
Nazareth ? Had the smiting of his mere human- 
ity been the sole object of the Lord of Hosts, its 
sure execution might have been left to the irons 
of the cross, or to the soldier's spear, if the irons 
proved too dilatory in their work. There would 
have been no seeming need for invoking the sword 
of the Lord of Hosts. 

Another term of designation in the passage is 
demonstrative that the subject of the smiting was 
not the humanity of Christ alone. " Awake, O 
sword, against my shepherd." And again, the 
divine speaker said, " Smite the shepherd." Who 
was the Shepherd of the Lord of Hosts ? Even 
he who was his fellow. — Psalm xxiii., i. Isaiah, 
xl., 11. John, x., 14. Hebrews, xiii., 20. 1 Pe- 
ter, ii., 25 ; v., 4. This was the Shepherd who 
meekly descended to earth, to redeem with his 
blood, and gather in from every nation and every 
clime, his Father's dispersed and lost flock. The 
humanity of Bethlehem's babe was not the Shep- 
herd of the Lord of Hosts ; it was but the adjunct 



AWAKE SWORD AGAINST SHEPHERD. 251 

of that Shepherd ; the vestment in which that 
Shepherd arrayed himself; the tabernacle of flesh 
in which that Shepherd dwelt. 

That same Shepherd of the infinite Father is 
yet his Shepherd. In the green pastures of para- 
dise he still feeds his Father's flock ; still he folds 
the lambs in his bosom. There, clothed in his 
now glorified vestment of humanity, he will con- 
tinue the Shepherd of the Most High as long as 
the golden walls of the great sheep-fold of heaven 
shall rest secure on their everlasting foundations. 
This was the Shepherd against whose divine, as 
well as human nature, the Lord of Hosts invoked 
his almighty sword. Spare the God, but smite 
the man, was not his high command. His omnip- 
otent mandate went forth without exception or 
restriction ; general, universal ; pervading every 
element, searching • out every recess of the united 
natures ; brief, simple, majestic ; yet more lucid 
than the sunbeam, " Smite the Shepherd." 

The passage contains other proofs that it was 
against both of the united natures of Christ that 
the sword of the Lord of Hosts was summoned 
to awake. The ethereal essence of the second 
person of the Trinity formed the divine nature 
of the incarnate Son ; the body and soul of an or- 
dinary man, cleansed from the stain of sin, formed 



252 AWAKE SWORD AGAINST SHEPHERD. 

his human nature. The union of these two na- 
tures is often styled, in Christian phraseology, the 
God-man. It may be denominated, with, perhaps, 
equal force and propriety, the man-God. In ar- 
ranging the two elements of the complex name, 
we may as well ascend from the human nature 
to the divine as to descend from the divine nature 
to the human. It is in the ascending grade that 
the infinite Father himself ranked the two natures. 
He invoked his awakening sword, not only against 
" my Shepherd," but also " against the man that is 
my fellow ;" that is to say, against the man-God. 

Two ingredients entered into the composition 
of the subject that was to be smitten : humanity 
and fellowship with the Highest. The word " fel- 
low," as here used, is synonymous with equal. 
The appellation was inapplicable to the human- 
ity of the incarnate Son. But there was veiled 
w r ithin that humanity the ethereal essence of the 
second person of the Trinity, who was, indeed, 
the fellow of the everlasting Father ; who had oc- 
cupied the right-hand seat of the Father's throne 
for countless ages ere time was known in the uni- 
verse. That the humanity of Christ was not the 
fellow of the Highest, is proved by the declaration 
fresh from the lips of the incarnate God, when 
speaking of the inferiority of his human nature : 
" For my Father is greater than I." — John, xiv., 28, 



AWAKE SWORD AGAINST SHEPHERD. 253 

Those who confine to the mere humanity of the in- 
carnate Son the mandate of the Lord of Hosts to his 
omnipotent sword, unwittingly subtract from his 
words their vital aliment. If the mandate is not 
allowed to comprehend the fellow of the Highest 
in his united natures, the life of the words is ex- 
tinguished forever. The terms, " the man that is 
ny fellow," have the same amplitude of meaning 
as the term " shepherd," twice repeated in the 
passage. 

There are yet other expressions, hitherto unno- 
ticed, in this astounding passage, indicating that 
t was something infinitely beyond the mortal 
death of him of Nazareth which called forth the 
sword of the Lord of Hosts from its scabbard. 
It was summoned to awake ; which implies that 
; t had previously been in a state of repose — a re- 
pose, perhaps, until then unbroken in the flight of 
eternal ages. It was summoned not only to awake, 
but to awake and " smite ;" to awake, therefore, 
in the majesty of its might, in the terrors of its 
wrath. It was to " do his work, his strange work ; 
and bring to pass his act, his strange act" — Isaiah, 
xxviii., 21 — that the infinite Father invoked his 
slumbering sword. A God was to be smitten by 
a God ! The infinite Father was to smite his oth- 
er self; his own beloved, only-begotten Son; his 
meek and unresisting Shepherd ; the fellow of his 

Y 



254 AWAKE SWORD AGAINST SHEPHERD. 

everlasting reign ! No wonder that the sword 
of the Lord of Hosts — the keenest weapon in the 
armory of the Godhead — was summoned to awake 
from its long repose. Nothing but the sword of 
a God should, could have smitten a God. 

In this awful passage we seem to hear the au- 
dible voice of the Eternal, as it was once heard 
from Sinai, announcing prophetically the tremen- 
dous truth, since reiterated by the Holy Ghost, 
God " spared not his own Son." How feeble and 
evanescent was the purposed sacrifice by the 
faithful Abraham, even to typify the finished, the 
efficient, the universe-pervading sacrifice by the 
infinite Father. We say universe-pervading, and, 
we trust, without irreverence ; for who can doubt 
that the whole vast empire of the Godhead was 
benignly affected, to an extent nameless, illimita- 
ble, inconceivable, in its peace, in its prosperity, 
in the enduring happiness of its countless worlds, 
by the one great sacrifice on Calvary, seen and 
viewless. 

There is a preceding passage in the same proph- 
et, which demands our attention : " And I will pour 
upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants 
of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplica- 
tions ; and they shall look upon me whom they have 
pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one that 



THE PIERCED CHRIST. 255 

mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitter- 
ness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first- 
born." — Zechariah, xii., 10. This prophecy was 
uttered by the second person of the Trinity. The 
infinite Father became the speaker in the next 
chapter. In this chapter the speaker was the in- 
finite Son. The subject to be pierced was the 
God " manifest in the flesh." — John, xix., 37. 

The corporeal piercing was not merely the per- 
foration of the sufferer's inanimate side by the 
Roman spear ; his living hands and feet were to 
be pierced. " They shall pierce my hands and my 
feet." — Psalm xxii., 16. "Corporal sufferance" 
was not, however, the sole price to be paid for 
the salvation of man. The " iron entered the 
soul" of the vicarious victim. This is generally 
allowed, even by the advocates of the prevalent 
theory. The majority believe that the soul of the 
sufferer was pierced ; but their faith stops at the 
dividing line between his human and divine spirit. 
Why stop at that line ? No such stopping-place 
is indicated on the scriptural chart. 

The God was also to be pierced. The speak- 
ing God of the prophet was to be the pierced God 
of the evangelist. The awakened sword of the 
Lord of Hosts was to penetrate the most sacred 
recesses of his divine essence. The speaking God 
of the prophet was the mighty " me" of the pre- 






256 THE PIERCED CHRIST. 

diction. " They shall look upon me whom they 
have pierced." And now mark w r ell the sudden 
and significant change of phraseology : " And 
they shall mourn for him." Why this sudden 
transmutation of the third for the first person? 
It was no idle play of words ; the transition was 
big with meaning. The speaker was God the Son. 
He designated by the pronoun " me" his own ethe- 
real essence. But at the time of the fulfilment of 
the prophecy, a new nature was to be added, con- 
sisting of a perfect man, corporeally and intellect- 
ually. To that adjunct nature — the man to be 
united to the God — the pronoun "him" was ap- 
plied : " They shall look upon me whom they have 
pierced, and they shall mourn for him." The 
viewless sword of the Lord of Hosts w r as to per- 
vade both natures of the incarnate Deity. 

The human piercers, when " the spirit of grace 
and of supplications" should be poured into their 
hearts, would look upon the pierced God, and 
wonder, and repent, and adore ; they would mourn 
for the pierced man with the same deep and affec- 
tionate mortal grief with which one " mourneth 
for his only son," and " be in bitterness for him as 
one is in bitterness for his first-born." The hu- 
man piercers, fiendish as was their intent, were 
but the instruments of infinite retribution. The 
efficient Piercer of the divine substitute for sinners 
was the Lord of Hosts. 



BLESSEDNESS OF GOD. 257 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Scriptural Passages ascribing Blessedness to the Deity- -If they are 
more than Doxologies, they imply no Incapacity to sustain Volun- 
tary Suffering — Divine Beatitude progressive — " Joy set before'' 
" the Author and Finisher of our Faith" — Divine Immutability — 
Not impugned by our Argument. 

The scriptural passages ascribing blessedness 
to the Deity will, doubtless, be invoked in favour 
of his impassibility. The following are samples 
of these passages : " Blessed be the most high 
God." — Genesis, xiv., 20. " Blessed be the Lord 
God of Israel forever and ever." — 1 Chronicles, 
xvi., 36. " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from 
everlasting to everlasting." — Psalm xli., 1 3. " Bless- 
ed be the Lord forever more." — Psalm lxxxix., 52. 
1 Blessed be the King of Israel, that cometh in the 
name of the Lord." — John, xii., 13. "And wor- 
shipped and served the creature more than the 
Creator, who is blessed forever." — Romans, i., 25. 
" Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, 
who is over all, God blessed forever." — Romans, 
ix., 5. " Until the appearing of our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; which in his times he shall show, who is 
the blessed and only Potentate." — 1 Timothy, vi., 
15. 

Y 2 



258 BLESSEDNESS OF GOD. 

We believe these passages to be rather doxolo- 
gies than declarations of doctrine ; rather ascrip- 
tions of praise and thanksgiving to the Deity than 
averments of his infinite beatitude. So thought 
MacKnight, the learned annotator on the apostolic 
epistles. The passage which seems to approach 
nearer than, perhaps, any other in the whole Bible, 
to a declaration of the unchanging felicity of the 
Godhead from everlasting to everlasting, is that 
which we have just transcribed from the first 
chapter of Romans, where it is said that the heathen 
" worshipped and served the creature more than 
the Creator, who is blessed forever." The learned 
annotator on the epistles, in his commentary on 
this passage, though himself a firm adherent of 
the prevalent theory, rendered the passage thus : 
" Worshipped and served the creature rather than 
the Creator, who is to be praised forever."* But 
if any of the passages are to be regarded as dec- 
larations of the divine blessedness, they contain no 
affirmation or intimation that the beatitude of the 
Deity is fixed by a law paramount to his own voli- 
tion, so that neither of the persons of the Trinity 
has capacity to become a voluntary sufferer. 

The ascriptions of blessedness in scripture were 
often applied to Christ. It was of Christ that the 
apostle declared, " Who is over all, God blessed 

* MacKnight on the Epistles, vol. i., p. 149. 



BLESSEDNESS OF GOD. 259 

forever." It was of Jesus Christ that he again 
declared, " Who is the blessed and only Potentate." 
These ascriptions were applicable as well to his 
manhood as to his Godhead. They reached and 
pervaded both of his united natures. The united 
being, the whole Christ of the Bible, was styled 
" the blessed and only Potentate." The whole 
Christ was denominated, " God blessed forever." 
And yet this same united Being had just passed 
through the most terrible furnace of suffering ever 
lighted up on earth. If the ascriptions implied 
declarations of unchanged beatitude, and reached 
the past as well as the coming eternity, then Christ 
suffered not. His passion was but Oriental im- 
agery. It was Christ, termed in the passage from 
the twelfth chapter of John "the King of Israel" 
on whom the epithet " blessed" was bestowed as 
he was entering Jerusalem to be crucified. If 
the passage was intended, not as a mere hosanna, 
but a declaration of Christ's beatitude, it must 
have meant a beatitude of which he was capable 
of " emptying himself," when required by the good 
of the universe and the glory of the Godhead ; for 
in a few hours afterward he voluntarily paid, by 
his own unimaginable sufferings, the price of a 
world's redemption. 

No direct affirmations of scripture were neces- 
sary to demonstrate the beatitude of God. It re- 



260 BLESSEDNESS OF GOD. 

suits from the infinitude of his perfections. A Be- 
ing of infinite power, knowledge, wisdom, holi- 
ness, justice, and goodness, has within himself in- 
finite resources of felicity. But the felicity of the 
Deity is subject to his volition. He is not fated to 
the same unchangeable condition of blessedness 
whether he wills it or not. His beatitude is, like 
his glory, rather the emanation of his combined 
attributes than a distinct attribute of itself. Of his 
beatitude, as well as of his glory, the uncreated 
Son was capable of divesting himself for a time 
when he became a terrestrial sojourner in the 
flesh. His infinite power, and knowledge, and 
wisdom, and holiness, and justice, and goodness 
remained unchanged. But his glory and his be- 
atitude he voluntarily cast aside for a brief season, 
that he might resume them again in increased and 
everlasting effulgence and perfection. 

Had the second person of the Trinity peremp- 
torily declined to suffer when his suffering was 
prompted by the affections of his own benignant 
heart, sanctioned by his own unerring wisdom, 
and approved in the council of the Godhead, none 
on earth can be sure that his bliss might not have 
sustained a greater diminution from the absence 
than it has from the endurance of suffering thus 
prompted, sanctioned, and approved. The aggre- 
gate of earthly happiness is measured by the span 



BLESSEDNESS OF GOD. 261 

of- human life ; the aggregate of divine felicity is 
weighed in the balances of eternity. None on 
earth can say that the brief suffering of the second 
person of the Trinity in the flesh has not aug- 
mented the totality of his beatitude, when tested 
by the arithmetic of heaven. Had he reposed 
unmoved on his throne, and beheld, afar off, the 
smoke of the torment of the apostate pair, and of 
the countless generations of their descendants, 
ascending up forever and ever, how can human 
reason venture to decide that, in the flight of end- 
less ages, the eternity of his bliss might not have 
suffered more than it will have suffered from his 
mournful, but short earthly pilgrimage? 

Reasoning pride has no grounds for concluding 
that the compassionate heart of our divine Re- 
deemer might not have yearned unceasingly over 
the undistinguished perdition of a whole race, cre- 
ated by his own hands, in his own similitude, 
and seduced from unsuspecting innocence by the 
matchless wiles of one who had before beguiled 
from allegiance the third part of heaven. The 
ascending smoke would have been at once the 
memorial of a world destroyed, and the waving 
banner of his triumphant foe. Now has his di- 
vine and expiatory suffering bound that foe in ev- 
erlasting chains, and proffered to every son and 
daughter of that world destroyed the healing and 



262 god's bliss progressive. 

saving blood of his own most precious salvation. 
Now will the benignancy of infinite love forever 
overflow, and the pillars of infinite justice stand 
firm and sure as the foundations of the universe. 

We believe that the beatitude of the Deity is 
progressive. Progression seems to be a govern- 
ing principle, pervading the intellectual universe. 
Its display in man is palpable. Doubtless it per- 
vades the angelic hosts. Why should it not reach 
the beatitude even of him who made progressive 
man in " his own image," and after " his own like- 
ness ?" We learn that the bliss of heaven is en- 
hanced by the repentance of a single sinner on 
earth. Who will venture to presume that this 
enhancement of blessedness ascends not even to 
those who fill the celestial throne ? That the glo- 
ry of God is progressive, is a clear deduction from 
his own holy word. His beatitude is a sister em- 
anation from the Godhead. Why, then, if one of 
the sacred sisters is found to be progressive, should 
the other be supposed to be stationary ? 

We believe it deducible from scripture, not only 
that the divine blessedness is progressive, but also 
that the beatitude of the uncreated Son will, in the 
reckoning of eternity, be immeasurably enhanced 
by his mediatorial sufferings and triumph. " Look- 
ing unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, 



JOY SET BEFORE HIM. 263 

who, for the joy that was set before him, endured 
the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at 
the right hand of the throne of God." — Hebrews, 
xii., 2. This passage was, doubtless, applied to 
the redeeming man. We believe it to have been 
still more emphatically applied to the redeeming 
God. It was predicated of Jesus, that august Be- 
ing who, in himself, united a terrestrial atom to 
celestial infinity. It was predicated of him with- 
out limitation or exception. Its terms comprehend- 
ed his divine as well as his human nature. 

The subject of the passage is farther distinguish- 
ed as " the Author and Finisher of our faith." The 
human son of the Virgin was not the author of our 
faith ; nor was he alone its finisher. The Author 
of our faith was the redeeming God. He became 
its Author by the covenant of redemption between 
him and the Father, ere the worlds were formed. 
Its finisher was the redeeming God and the re- 
deeming man united ; the God enacting the infi- 
nite, the man the finite part. It is impossible that 
inspiration, unmindful of the predominating, the 
almost absorbing agency of the God, should have 
clothed the human son of the Virgin with the ex- 
clusive title of " the Author and Finisher of our 
faith !" He had no agency in its authorship ; he 
had not then himself come into being ; he was 
only an humble adjunct in its consummation. Yet 



264 JOY SET BEFORE HIM. 

it was " the Author and Finisher of our faith" who 
had " the joy" set before him. The conclusion is 
inevitable that " the joy" must have been " set be- 
fore" the redeeming God as well as the redeeming 
man. 

What was " the joy that was set before" " the 
Author and Finisher of our faith," the Bible has not 
informed us distinctly ; we learn, however, that 
it was to be a new accession of " joy ;" an aug- 
mentation of pre-existent beatitude. It was a 
"j°y" of magnitude sufficient to move a God. 
It was a " joy" for which the Creator as well as 
the creature "endured the cross, despising the 
shame." A chief element in this sacred "joy" of 
the redeeming God is, doubtless, the happiness of 
the sons and daughters of salvation. They were 
destined to be eternal prisoners in the dungeons of 
despair ; he transformed them into rejoicing saints 
around the throne of the Highest. Their happi- 
ness, purchased by his sufferings, is, no doubt, re- 
flected back upon himself in unimaginable reful- 
gence. 

" The quality of mercy is not strained. 

******** # 

It is twice blessed : 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." 

If this is true of an earthly philanthropist, how 
much deeper must be its truth when applied to the 



IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 265 

great Philanthropist of heaven ! We may judge 
of his "joy" in the salvation of the redeemed from 
his pity for their lost estate. His pity was infi- 
nite, and so must be his "joy." His pity and his 
"joy" are alike beyond the comprehension of the 
cherubim and the seraphim. He views with 
complacency the material universe formed by his 
word ; he regards with ineffable delight the moral 
creation brought into being by " the travail of his 
soul ;" pleasant to his hearing is the music of the 
circling spheres ; rapturous to his heart is the an- 
them of praise and thanksgiving which ascends 
forever and ever from the mighty congregation 
of his redeemed children. Gethsemane and Cal- 
vary have yielded the brightest crown of glory to 
Him who "wears on his head many crowns." 
They have poured into his divine bosom a new 
river of " joy ," " clear as crystal," deep as the 
foundations of his throne, lasting as his eternity. 

Let it not be imagined for a moment that our 
argument seeks to impugn the unchangeableness 
of the Godhead. Immutability is one of the glo- 
rious attributes of the Deity. Amid all the varie- 
ties in the divine administration, a voice is still 
heard from the pavilion of the Highest, " I am the 
Lord : I change not." — Malachi, iii., 6. Some- 
times, indeed, he appears the personification of 
mercy ; sometimes a " consuming fire." It is he 

Z 



266 IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 

who has breathed into the harps of heaven their 
joyous melody ; it is he who has lit up the quench- 
less conflagration of hell. God the Son is the 
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world ; he, 
too, is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. The voice 
that mourned over Jerusalem with more than a 
mother's tenderness will pronounce, in tones more 
astounding than ten thousand thunders, " Depart 
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared 
for the devil and his angels." Nevertheless, his 
words and his acts, when duly understood, alike 
confirm the proclamation, " I am the Lord : I 
change not." That in him "is no variableness, 
neither shadow of turning," is written on the eter- 
nity of the past ; it will glow in still brighter col- 
ours on the eternity of the future. — James, i., 17. 

If the imputation of suffering would cast a shade 
of changeableness upon him " who is over all, 
God blessed forever," so would his incarnation, in 
the view of those who seek to survey that great 
event through the imperfect microscope of human 
reason. How stupendous the seeming change, 
when "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us !" What greater change could mortal 
imagination conceive than the transition from the 
celestial throne to the manger of Bethlehem ! The 
transformation wrought on the immutable God by 
his wondrous incarnation has filled even heaven 



IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 267 

with amazement. At the right hand of power, 
the angelic hierarchies once beheld the spiritual 
Essence of the second person of the Trinity ; they 
now behold there, with holy curiosity and won- 
der, the same spiritual Essence clothed in glorified 
human flesh, bearing, no doubt, on his hands and 
feet the marks of the nails of the cross, and on 
his side the scar of the Roman spear. 

To gain an adequate conception of the un- 
changeableness of the Godhead, the beholder 
must stand on an eminence high as heaven, and 
extend his comprehensive view along the illimita- 
ble tracts of eternity and immensity. Then will 
he find, in the incarnation and sufferings of the 
eternal Son, the fullest development of the immu- 
tability of the triune Deity ever revealed to mor- 
tal vision. Rather than change his unchangeable 
mercy, God the Son consented to become incar- 
nate and suffer in his own divine essence, that sin- 
ners might be saved. Rather than change his un- 
changeable justice, God the Father " spared not 
his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." 
The incarnation and sufferings of God the Son 
were not caused by any change in the eternal 
counsels. The apostacy of man took not Omnis- 
cience by surprise. It had been foreseen from 
the beginning. The earliest eternity had regis- 
tered in its archives the advent and sufferings of 



% 



268 IMMUTABILITY OP GOD. 

the incarnate Deity, and his ascension and cease- 
less reign at the right hand of the Highest. We 
might almost say that, before the worlds were 
formed, incarnation and suffering were incorpora- 
ted into his very being among its constituent ele- 
ments. Had God the Son not been laid in the 
manger of Bethlehem; had God the Son not "en- 
dured the cross ;" had the cup passed from God 
the Son, as he for a moment so pathetically sup- 
plicated, unchangeableness must have been forev- 
er plucked from the glorious constellation of the 
attributes of the Godhead. 

Suffering wrought no change in the decrees or 
purposes of the redeeming God. If it effected 
any change, it must, then, have been either in his 
essence or in his attributes. That suffering cannot 
change the essence of spiritual beings, is an awful 
truth deducible from the revealed history of the 
universe, past and prospective. The suffering 
God, then, remained identical in essence with the 
creating God. Nor did suffering change any of 
his glorious attributes. His justice, holiness, pow- 
er, wisdom, truth, immutability, and love never 
shone so conspicuously nor harmoniously as when, 
made sin for sinners, he meekly submitted himself, 
in all his omnipotence, to the avenging sword of 
the Lord of Hosts. Even from the cross the ear 
of faith might have caught the still, deep whisper, 



IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 269 



unheard by carnal ears, " I am the Lord : I change 
not." 



Had God been inflexible as the imaginary fate 
of heathen mythology, prayer would be useless, 
perhaps impious ; for it would seek, by creature 
importunity, to move the Immoveable. But the 
God of the Bible is the hearer and answerer of 
prayer. " The effectual fervent prayer of a righ- 
teous man availeth much." To the prayers of 
Elias the rains of heaven were made obedient. — 
James, v., 16, 17. Present death was denounced 
against Hezekiah ; yet the earnest prayer of the 
pious king had efficacy to 

" Roll back the flood of never-ebbing time," 

and add fifteen years to the span of his life. — 
2 Kings, xx., 1-11. At the prayer of Moses, 
" the Lord repented of the evil which he thought 
to do unto his people." — Exodus, xxxii., 14. When 
the penitent cry of Nineveh was wafted towards 
heaven, " God saw their works that they turned 
from their evil way, and God repented of the evil 
that he had said he would do unto them, and he 
did it not." — Jonah, hi., 10. 

But amid all these seeming changes in the pur- 
poses of the Almighty, he is still the unchanging 
God, " with whom is no variableness, neither 
shadow of turning." To hear and answer the 

Z2 



270 IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 

prayers of the faithful was a part of his eternal 
counsels, forming a constituent element of the 
Godhead ere the worlds were created. His pa- 
tient hearing and gracious answering of prayer, 
in every age and every place, is, to fallen crea- 
tures, the most consolatory development of divine 
immutability. Should he cease to be the paternal 
hearer and answerer of prayer, he would cease to 
be himself. He would become thenceforth the 
changed, instead of the unchangeable God. 

The very perfection and immutability of God's 
attributes induce mutations in his feelings and ac- 
tions. A being of infinite and unchanging power, 
wisdom, holiness, goodness, justice, and truth, 
must needs have felt and acted differently towards 
the persecuting Saul of Tarsus, and Paul, the de- 
voted, the exulting martyr. Upon the rebellious 
and fallen angels, now monuments of his righteous 
and unpitying wrath, the light of God's counte- 
nance once beamed, perhaps, as benignly as on 
his own faithful Gabriel. From everlasting to 
everlasting the glorious attributes of the Highest 
continue in unvarying perfection. But in a uni- 
verse where sin has entered ; where created in- 
telligences abound with volitions w free as air ;" 
where the principle of good and the principle of 
evil contend for mastery with varying success, 
he " who sitteth in the heavens" is of necessity led, 



IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 271 

by the immutability of his own infinite perfections, 
to mutation of emotion, and consequent muta- 
tion of action. Yet is there no real change in the 
unchanging God. His mutations are but the de- 
velopments of his unalterable perfections. Their 
most astonishing development was the sacrifice 
of his own uncreated Son, to save our sinful and 
perishing world. The descending sword of the 
Lord of Hosts, awakened to smite his other self, 
was the crowning demonstration of divine immu- 
tability. 



272 REASONS OF INCARNATION. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Incarnation no Proof that God the Son had not Capacity to suffer 
without it — Probable Reasons of Incarnation— It presented Exam- 
ple of perfect Man — Brought Proofs of Gospel home to Senses of 
Men — Rendered Triumph over Satan complete — Affords abiding 
Memorial of God's Justice and Love — Incarnate God, in both his 
Natures, obeyed the Law. 

Let it not be objected, because the redeeming 
God took on him the " body" that was prepared 
for him, and became flesh and blood with " the 
children" he came to save, that therefore the as- 
sumption of manhood was needful to enable Om- 
nipotence to suffer. — Heb., ii., 14 ; x., 5. Whence 
does the prevalent hypothesis derive this objec- 
tion ? Not from the Holy Ghost In the volume 
of inspired truth not a sentence is to be found in- 
timating that destiny has surrounded the sphere 
of suffering with a barrier which the Almighty 
cannot overleap, even if he wills to pass it. It is 
the presumptuous objection of reasoning pride. 
The investiture of manhood was selected because 
it was deemed by infinite wisdom the most appro- 
priate habiliment for the Saviour of our sinking 
race. It was selected as the suffering costume 
most becoming the redeeming God. Even our 
finite faculties can perceive many reasons why he 



REASONS OF INCARNATION. 273 

should suffer in the fallen nature he came to save. 
We would venture, with profound reverence, to 
suggest some of the considerations which may 
possibly have commended the garb of flesh to the 
self-devoted Deity. 

First. Had he suffered in the nature of angels, 
or in his own incorporeal essence, he might, in- 
deed, have paid the debts of the redeemed to the 
celestial treasury ; but the payment of their debts 
was not the sole object of his mediatorial mission. 
He came to rescue them, not only from the pen- 
alty, but also from the power of sin. He came, 
not only to save them from hell, but to prepare 
them for heaven. He came to breathe into them a 
portion of his own holiness ; to lure them upward 
by his own glorious example ; to make them, by 
his precepts and pattern, " meet to be partakers 
of the inheritance of the saints in light." — Colos- 
sians, i., 12. To render his example efficacious, 
it must needs have been imitable. The children 
of humanity could not have imitated the unshroud- 
ed God. They could not even have seen him and 
lived. — Exodus, xxxiii., 20. To make his exam- 
ple imitable by man, he must of necessity have 
assumed the form of a man ; wherefore, " the 
Word was made flesh." — John, i., 14. " Where- 
fore in all things it became him to be made like 
unto his brethren." — Hebrews, ii., 17. 



274 REASONS OF INCARNATION. 

Secondly. The incarnation was necessary to 
secure, on earth, credence for the gospel. Man 
is, by nature, a skeptical animal. The unbeliev- 
ing Thomas was a sample of the fallen race. 
Had the proofs of the miracle of redeeming love 
been less palpable and cogent, it could not have 
obtained the belief of those for whose salvation it 
was intended. If the angel, instead of announ- 
cing to the shepherds of Bethlehem the physical 
birth of a Saviour in the city of David, had pro- 
claimed that the second person of the Trinity- 
had redeemed our apostate race by suffering for 
them in his original essence, in the celestial court, 
" high and lifted up" above mortal ken, the mes- 
senger from heaven would have obtained few con- 
verts on earth. 

To make incredulous man a believer in the stu- 
pendous scheme of redemption, sensible demon- 
strations were indispensable. Proofs must be ac- 
cumulated on proofs. The prophetic harp must 
detail in advance the anticipated biography of the 
coming Messiah. The Messiah must be born, and 
live, and die, in exact fulfilment of ancient predic- 
tion. Miracles must be wrought. The wondrous 
star ; the descending dove ; the audible voice from 
the clouds ; the transfiguration on the mount ; the 
multiplication of the five barley loaves and two 
small fishes into abounding aliment for a famished 



REASONS OF INCARNATION. 275 

host ; the obeying elements ; the submissivs devils ; 
the healing of the sick ; the raising of the dead ; 
his crucifixion, with its darkened sun, and rent 
rocks, and trembling earth ; his resurrection ; his 
visible ascension, were all required to convince 
an unbelieving world that the Son of God suffered 
and died for its redemption. This mighty mass 
of proof would not have been accumulated had 
less sufficed. Heaven is never prodigal of display. 

The feeble, hesitating, reluctant faith of man 
required to be confirmed by appeals to all his 
senses. The word of the God could not have 
overcome the stubbornness of incredulity. To 
gain from his creatures their reluctant belief, the 
Creator was obliged to become incarnate. Had 
he not become incarnate, and re-enforced, too, 
his appeals by a succession of stupendous mira- 
cles, he could not have made proselytes, even 
of his twelve disciples. Their faith, indeed, re- 
quired for its aliment, not only that they should 
see with their eyes, but also that they should han- 
dle with their hands, of the Word of life.. — 1 John, 
i., 1. As it was, one of them betrayed him, and 
another denied him, and all of them fled from him 
in his darkened hour. Even as it now is, infidel- 
ity boldly stalks the earth, polluting with its foul 
breath the pure air of heaven. Even as it now 
is, the regenerated, the sanctified, the redeemed 



276 REASONS OF INCARNATION. 

children of humanity are, in this life, but half be- 
lievers. 

Thirdly. The incarnation of the redeeming God 
rendered more complete and manifest his triumph 
over the arch enemy. Even frail reason may per- 
ceive the fitness of the provision, that he who 
bruised the serpent's head should have first assu- 
med the seed of the woman ; that his victory over 
the powers of darkness should have been achieved 
in the very world, and in the very nature which 
they had seduced from allegiance. This consid- 
eration, doubtless, helps to swell the exultation of 
heaven. This is, no doubt, the scorpion sting in 
the core of the hearts of the baffled princedoms 
reserved in chains of darkness in the prison-house 
of despair. 

Fourthly. The incarnation has afforded an im- 
perishable memorial of the greatest event which 
the flight of never-beginning ages has beheld. In 
the lapse of the eternity to come, Gethsemane 
and Calvary might, without this memorial, have 
faded in the recollection of created intelligences. 
Frail is the memory of even redeemed man. 
Less than infinite is the memory of the cherubim 
and the seraphim. But an everlasting monument of 
the struggles and the triumph of redeeming love has 
been fixed by the incarnation in the most conspic- 



REASONS OF INCARNATION. 277 

uous station of the universe. The redeeming God 
carried with him to heaven the body in which he 
had suffered on earth, and placed it at the right 
hand of the Highest. There that pierced body 
forever remains, its scars betokening less the la- 
cerations of the visible irons than the unseen 
wounds inflicted on the uncreated Spirit of his di- 
vine Son by the viewless sword of the Lord of 
Hosts. With this ever-living memorial, occupy- 
ing the central point of the universal empire, it 
is impossible that the recollection of the garden 
and the cross, with all their thrilling associations, 
should ever be dimmed by the course of ceaseless 
ages. 

Should the harp of the weakest saint allowed 
to enter the New Jerusalem falter for a moment, 
he has but to cast his eye on the right-hand seat 
of the celestial throne, and those speaking scars 
must at once renovate his love and his zeal. 
Should ambition a second time insinuate itself into 
the angelic ranks, its aspiration must be checked 
and extinguished by a single glance at the right- 
hand seat of the celestial throne. That pierced 
body is an abiding memento of the awful truth 
that, sooner than leave sin unpunished, the eternal 
Father spared not his own eternal Son. It is a 
demonstration of the inflexibility of God's wrath 
against transgressions, infinitely more impressive 

A A 



278 BOTH NATURES OBEYED LAW. 

than the smoke which ascends forever and ever 
from the pit of despair. Those warning scars, 
symbolizing the expiatory anguish of the suffering 
Deity, are an everlasting beacon to guard the an- 
gelic hosts against the incipient movements of for- 
bidden desire. 

Fifthly. The redeeming God was to obey the 
law. It was the dishonour done to the law 
which 

" Brought death into the world, and all our wo." 

Our great Deliverer was to restore its tarnished 
honour, not only by paying its penalty, but also 
by perfect obedience to its precepts. To make 
the obedience perfect, and availing, and palpable 
to created intelligences, incarnation was required. 
It was needful, not merely that the Word should 
be made flesh, but likewise that he should dwell 
among us. The obedience of the incarnate God 
was not in his human capacity alone. Both his 
natures concurred in the obedience. The God, 
as well as the man, obeyed the law. This is the 
inevitable conclusion from the language of scrip- 
ture. 

The man was a glorious and beautiful specimen 
of what our race would have been had they re- 
tained their affinity to heaven. Even the chilled 
eye of atheism must be sometimes inclined to melt 



LAW OBEYED HAD THREE BRANCHES. 279 

as it gazes on such a lovely personification of mor- 
al excellence. That a creature so pure, warned 
by the example of the first Adam, sustained by 
the consciousness of indwelling divinity, animated 
by " the joy set belore him," should have yielded 
perfect obedience to a law, the counterpart of him- 
self in holiness, was an event not likely to excite 
" special wonder." But the Bible speaks of the 
obedience of the incarnate God as a very ex- 
traordinary event. The Bible must, therefore, 
have referred to the obedience of the second per- 
son of the Trinity. That was the acme of won- 
der. For him to become obedient on earth, who 
had from everlasting been accustomed to su- 
preme command in heaven, was indeed a phe- 
nomenon of gracious condescension well calcula- 
ted to create astonishment in this world and in the 
world above. 

The law obeyed by the incarnate God had three 
branches : the ceremonial code of the Jews ; the 
code promulged at Sinai ; and the mediatorial 
code, formed by the covenant of redemption, be- 
tween the Father and the Son, in early eternity. 
The incarnate God obeyed to the letter the Jew- 
ish ceremonial code. He was circumcised on the 
eighth day. Jerusalem and all Judea went out to 
be baptized of John. In conformity with this prev- 
alent usage of his nation, the incarnate God w T as 



280 MEDIATORIAL CODE. 

baptized by his conscious and hesitating servant. 
The visible dove and the audible voice demon- 
strated that he who caused Jordan to flow was, 
in very truth, the recipient of its baptismal waters. 
The incarnate God obeyed the law promulged at 
Sinai. " Think not that I am come to destroy the 
law and the prophets ; I am not come to destroy, 
but to fulfil." — Matthew, v., 17. " For as by one 
man's disobedience many were made sinners, so 
by the obedience of one many shall be made righ- 
teous." — Romans, v., 19. 

But the principal code to be obeyed by the in- 
carnate God was the mediatorial code. This was 
emphatically the code of the Godhead. Two of 
the Sacred Three ordained it, ages before the 
birth of the infant Jesus. The second of the Sa- 
cred Three was to be its self-devoted, its obedi- 
ent subject. The man was, no doubt, to obey it, 
according to the measure of his very limited ca- 
pacity. But in the article of merit the obedience 
of the man bore no greater proportion to the obe- 
dience of the God than the finite bears to the infi- 
nite. The principal ingredient in the mediatorial 
code was its demand for expiatory suffering. It 
may be styled the suffering code. Of this suffer- 
ing code God the Son was one of the legislators ; 
of this suffering code God the Son was to be the 
victim. Here was a spectacle of blended justice, 



SUFFERING OF THE MAN. 281 

love, and disinterestedness upon which, to eterni- 
ty, the universe may gaze without satiety ! 

It was, indeed, a code of terrible exaction. Its 
penalty, if concentrated within a space shorter 
than eternity, could not have been endured by the 
united energies of created intelligences. We be- 
lieve that nothing but an uncreated and almighty 
God could have borne it. The obedience of God 
the Son to this penal code is " demonstration 
strong," not only of his capacity to suffer, but of 
his actual sufferings To this code he " who, being 
in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be 
equal with God," " became obedient unto death." 
— Philippians, ii., 8. " Though he were a Son, 
yet learned he obedience by the things which he 
suffered." — Hebrews, v., 8. The " Son" indicated 
by the writer to the Hebrews was not the human 
son of the Virgin, but the Son of the Highest 
clothed in flesh. 

The suffering of the uncreated Son did not ren- 
der superfluous the suffering of the adjunct man. 
In the early age of the Christian Church — that 
prolific foundry of airy theories — the opinion at 
one time prevailed, to some extent, that the man- 
hood of Christ suffered in appearance only. This 
heresy was, however, of short duration. It is 
not, indeed, conceivable that an incarnate Deity 

A a 2 



282 SUFFERING WHY NECESSARY. 

should suffer in his Godhead without imparting 
suffering to the clay tenement in which he is en- 
shrined. 

But, without discussing the doctrine of possibil- 
ities when applied to the Omnipotent, it is enough 
for us to say that the blessed incarnation of the 
Bible would have failed in some of its apparent 
objects had the adjunct man remained in a condi- 
tion of untouched felicity. No imitable example 
would have been left to the suffering faithful as a 
pattern of meekness and patience. There would 
have been no visible and palpable representation 
to shadow forth the atoning agonies on earth, and 
perpetuate their remembrance in heaven. No 
bloody sweat, no speaking scars would have sym- 
bolized the viewless pangs of the redeeming God. 
How could the man have participated with the 
kindred Deity, in his exaltation unless he had par- 
ticipated with him in his sufferings? The man, 
as well as the enshrined Divinity, " for the joy set 
before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, 
and is now set down at the right hand of the throne 
of God." — Hebrews, xii., 2. 



OBJECTIONS TO THEORY. 283 



CHAPTER XX. 

Objections to Prevalent Theory — Venerable for its Age and Preva- 
lence — Miniature of its Outlines— Derogates from Simplicity and 
Fulness of Atonement — Not founded on Scripture — Imparts to 
Bible figurative Meaning — Lowers Affection from Godhead of 
QJhrist to Manhood — Strengthens Unitarian Error. 

We have now reached the point where it be- 
comes necessary, in the progress of our argument, 
to attempt a more detailed examination of the 
prevalent theory than we have hitherto done. 
This is a delicate branch of our subject. We 
would not willingly aid in the demolition of a ma- 
terial edifice, venerable for its age, and conse- 
crated as the scene of memorable events, however 
much we might complain of its architectural pro- 
portions. With how much profounder regret do 
we enter, with hostile purpose, that spiritual struc- 
ture, which has extended over continents its vast 
dimensions, and grown gray under the frosts of 
almost fifteen hundred years ! Ever since its 
erection, it has been the abode of the chief portion 
of the piety of Christendom. In its many cham- 
bers devotion has for ages uttered her dying pray- 
ers, and breathed forth her last faltering accents. 
From its lofty turrets, for near fifteen centuries, 
have triumphantly ascended joyous groups of" the 
spirits of just men made perfect." 



284 MINIATURE OF THEORY. 

That the corner-stone of this stupendous struc- 
ture has been laid in error, is engraved on the 
tablet of our heart, as it were, by a pen of iron on 
tablets of marble. With the absorbing belief rest- 
ing on our soul that the second person of the Trin- 
ity suffered and died, in his ethereal essence, for 
the redemption of our race, we cannot withhold 
from this sublimest of truths the aid of our feeble 
voice, even were we to stand alone with a world 
opposed. Religious misconception is not changed 
into truth by its prevalence or age. If errors of 
faith could be consecrated by their universality or 
antiquity, then might the paganism of China inter- 
pose against the missionaries of the Cross a ram- 
part more impregnable than her celebrated wall 
interposed to Tartar incursions. 

The following is a miniature representation of 
the prevalent theory: It affirms that the second 
person of the Trinity, the incarnate Redeemer of 
the world, suffered and died, not in his divine na- 
ture, which is impassible, but in his human nature 
only: that by virtue of the union of his divine 
and human natures, called the hypostatic union, 
there was imparted to his human sufferings and 
death a value and dignity which made them, in 
the estimation of infinite justice, and in pursuance 
of the covenant of grace between the Father and 
the Son, an adequate atonement for the sins of the 



THEORY SINKS ATONEMENT. 285 

redeemed. This, though a brief, is believed to be 
a faithful sketch of the prevalent theory. 

To this theory are opposed serious objections, 
some of which have already been intimated. 

First. The theory derogates from the simplicity 
and fulness of the atonement, and imparts to it an 
illusive character. It subtracts from the atone- 
ment its vital principle. It robs it of its suffering, 
dying God. It substitutes the sufferings and death 
of the creature for the sufferings and death of the 
Creator. That the human son of the Virgin was 
a creature — as really so as Pfeter or John — the 
advocates of the prevalent theory will not deny. 
Nor will they affirm that mere creature sufferings 
could have atoned for the sins of man. For then 
Gabriel, instead of the eternal Son, might have 
been the incarnate redeemer of the world. But 
the prevalent theory would seek to imbue the suf- 
ferings of the creature with a borrowed value, re- 
flected from the Creator dwelling within. How 
the indwelling God could impart atoning value to 
creature sufferings, in which he did not himself 
participate, but from which he stood dissevered 
by the immutable laws of his being, none of the 
faculties of man, save his imagination, can shadow 
forth. Sufferings, valueless as an atoning offering 
in themselves, could not have derived atoning 



286 THEORY SINKS ATONEMENT. 

merits from the mere juxtaposition of indwelling 
divinity. 

The intrinsic worth of a habitation would not 
be enhanced by the rank of its occupant. Human 
vanity might, indeed, attach to an edifice, proffered 
in satisfaction of a debt, a fictitious value, from its 
having been tenanted by a prince ; but the cal- 
culations of human vanity would not have affected 
Him, who must have weighed earth's supposed 
offering for sin in the balance of the sanctuary, in 
the face of the intelligent universe. The Holder 
of the everlasting scales would, we suppose, have 
fixed the value of the offered tabernacle of clay 
from the intrinsic worth of its terrestrial materials, 
little moved by the consideration that the " Prince 
of life" was its tenant, and the poor oblation for a 
ruined world must have had written over against 
it the superscription so astounding to the aspiring 
Oriental despot, " Thou art weighed in the balances, 
and art found wanting." 

The supposition that the chief office of the sec- 
ond person of the Trinity in the work of redemp- 
tion was to impart, by his holy incarnation, dig- 
nity and value to creature sufferings, is the im- 
agination of the prevalent theory. Had the com- 
munication of dignity and value to creature suffer- 
ings been the chief object of the incarnation, it 



THEORY SINKS ATONEMENT. 287 

must have been somewhere intimated in the word 
of God. It would have formed too important a 
feature in the scheme of salvation to have escaped 
special notice. The silence of the Bible is a speak- 
ing silence. But the object of the holy incarna- 
tion is not left to be deduced by inference. The 
Bible everywhere indicates, in terms seemingly 
unequivocal, that the mission of the redeeming 
God was a suffering mission, and that its chief 
Actor was himself the principal Sufferer. 

The human son of the Virgin was doubtless im- 
measurably exalted by his union with the God- 
head. Even the ordinary Christian derives from 
his relationship to God a dignity far surpassing all 
that earth can confer. The humblest saint who 
drives his " team afield" may look down, as from 
a celestial height, on the diminished glories of a So- 
lon or a Caesar ; for he is " the temple of the Holy 
Ghost." How much greater was the exaltation 
of the human son of Mary ! Yet was he but a 
creature. His elevation to the throne of the High- 
est added not a fourth person to the Godhead. 
His sufferings were but creature sufferings. No- 
thing, save an infinite atonement, could have sat- 
isfied the requisitions of an infinite law, trampled 
under foot in the face of the universe. The vica- 
rious suffering of an insect of the field, and the vi- 
carious sufferings of legions of angels would have 



288 THEORY SINKS ATONEMENT. 

been alike inefficacious. To impart infinitude to 
creature sufferings, infinite duration is necessary. 
They can be swelled into infinity only by the 
ceaseless tide of eternal ages. 

Christ himself always assigned to his manhood 
a finite and inferior rank, notwithstanding its union 
w 7 ith the Godhead. Evidence of this truth abounds 
in his declarations. We need here cite no partic- 
ular texts to prove it. Some of them appear else- 
where in these pages. His manhood had no at- 
tribute of infinity. If, then, the manhood of Christ 
held only a finite rank, notwithstanding its union 
with the Godhead, how can the prevalent theory 
venture to assign an infinite rank to the exclusive 
sufferings of that manhood ? The sufferings of 
his mere manhood could not rank higher than the 
manhood itself. If his manhood derived not in- 
finity from union with the God, such union could 
not impart infinity to the sufferings of that man- 
hood. If the union of the God took not away 
from Christ's humanity its creature character, nei- 
ther could it have taken away from the sufferings 
of that humanity their creature character. As, 
then, the indwelling God infused nothing of infin- 
itude into the manhood of Christ, so he infused no- 
thing of infinitude into its sufferings. The impu- 
tation of infinite value to finite sufferings, because 
of the indwelling of an infinite Being, to whom 



THEORY SINKS ATONEMENT. 289 

the sufferings, however, were not communicated 
or communicable, should, to gain credence, be sus- 
tained by clear scriptural proofs. 

The prevalent theory subtracts from the atone- 
ment of the Bible, not only its infinitude, but also 
its ineffable dignity. This thought has been par- 
tially developed in an early part of our argument ; 
but its importance seemed to require its farther 
expansion in this connexion. 

Meeting full in the face the very numerous pas- 
sages of scripture ascribing sufferings to the divin- 
ity of Christ in terms not to be parried, the prev- 
alent theory, to avoid too palpable a collision with 
Holy Writ, was obliged to allege that, by the hy- 
postatic union of the divine and human natures in 
one person, the sufferings of the man became, in 
scriptural estimation, the sufferings of the God, not 
by actual endurance, but by adoption or construc- 
tion. These are the views expressed, as we have 
seen, by Bishops Pearson and Beveridge ; and 
without some such aliment, the hypostatic theory 
could not have subsisted. The redeeming God, 
then, is to be taken as the principal redeeming suf- 
ferer, constructively, according to the prevalent 
theory, actually, according to ours. As it regards 
its bearing on this particular point of our argu- 
ment, it is not material whether his suffering was 

Bb 



290 THEORY SINKS ATONEMENT. 

actual or constructive. It is enough for the pres- 
ent point, that in scriptural estimation the God suf- 
fered ; that the suffering is predicated of him who 
hath " weighed the mountains in scales, and the 
hills in a balance." — Isaiah, xl., 12. 

Suffering consists in the reduction of what would 
otherwise have been the happiness of the sufferer. 
The amount of the reduction tells the amount of 
the suffering. The happiness of the incarnate 
God, but for his suffering, would have been infi- 
nite. He imbodied the fulness of the beatitude 
of the Godhead. According to the prevalent the- 
ory, his suffering was finite. It reached his hu- 
manity alone. It was only the suffering of the 
finite man. It touched but the outer garment of 
the indwelling God. Subtract finite suffering from 
infinite beatitude, and the reduction must be too 
small for creature perception. It would elude, by 
its minuteness, the arithmetic of earth, and, as we 
suppose, the arithmetic of angels. 

If you take a drop from the bucket and a drop 
from the ocean, the loss of the bucket will be in- 
comparably greater than the loss of the illimitable 
sea ; for its capacity to lose with impunity is pro- 
portionally less than the capacity of the ocean. 
Christ, if his divinity tasted not " the cup of trem- 
bling," was happier even in the garden and on the 



THEORY NOT FOUNDED ON BIBLE. 291 

cross than any created intelligence to be found in 
this lower world or in the heavens abovS. His 
was the ocean of divine blessedness. The sub- 
traction of the drop of human wo caused a less 
diminution than would be caused to an ocean of 
earth by the subtraction of a single drop of its 
" multitudinous" waters ; for the oceans of earth 
have their shores ; the ocean of divine blessedness 
is shoreless. Thus the prevalent theory would 
sink those expiatory sufferings, which satisfied the 
divine law and redeemed the world, from their 
scriptural infinitude down to a point less, taken in 
reference to the illimitable beatitude of the suffer- 
er, than a single particle of the dust of the balance. 
" Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets 
of Ascalon," lest the spiritually uncircumcised 
should rejoice. 

Secondly. The prevalent theory, with its hy- 
postatic subordinate, has not its foundation in the 
Word of God. According to the scriptural rep- 
resentation, the redeeming sufferer appeared, not 
as a secondary planet, borrowing light and lustre 
from a central sun ; he was himself the central 
Sun of his own system of grace, shining in his 
own brightness. He was not the outer man, de- 
riving dignity from the impassible God within ; 
he was the suffering God, wearing the form of the 
outer man, but as the sinless representative of the 



292 THEORY NOT FOUNDED ON BIBLE. 

fallen nature he came to save. The Bible every- 
where gives to the redeeming sufferer the prima- 
ry, and not the secondary place. On the scriptu- 
ral canvass, the redeeming God is always depict- 
ed as the principal Sufferer. It was the " Prince 
of life" who was " killed ;" it was the " Lord of 
glory" who was " crucified ;" it was the Son of 
man "that came down from heaven" who gave 
" his life a ransom for many ;" it was the shepherd 
God who gave " his life for the sheep ;" it was 
God's " only-begotten Son" whom he " sent into 
the world" " to be the propitiation for our sins ;" 
it was the uncreated Son by whose " death" we 
were reconciled to God ; it was the Father's 
" own Son" whom he " spared not ;" it was " the 
brightness of his glory, and the express image of 
his person," who " purged our sins ;" it was God 
who " laid down his life for us ;" it was with the 
blood of God that he purchased his Church ; it 
was to smite his " Fellow" that the Lord of Hosts 
awakened his slumbering sword ; it was He that 
" thought it not robbery to be equal with God," 
who " emptied himself," and " became obedient 
unto death ;" it was the " Alpha and Omega," who 
" was dead and is alive again," and behold, he liv- 
eth forever more. From Genesis to Revelation, 
both inclusive, there is no text, within our recol- 
lection, intimating that " the Word was made 
flesh" merely to impart dignity and value to crea- 



THEORY NOT FOUNDED ON BIBLE. 293 

ture sufferings. The hypostatic scheme is too 
complicated, too involved, too artificial for gospel 
simplicity and directness. It bears the marks of 
the chisel of art. It has been formed in the la- 
boratories of earth. 

Was strength for the endurance of creature 
sufferings needed ? That strength might have 
been imparted to the human son of the Virgin by 
the mere mandate of the God. The mandate of 
Almighty God is wide-reaching and resistless. 
He commanded, and there was light. He spake, 
and from the opening east appeared the king of 
day, rejoicing in his might. He commanded, and 
straightway began the ceaseless dance of the har- 
monious spheres. His mandate was the chariot 
of fire in which the translated Elijah ascended to 
heaven. It was his mandate which closed the 
mouths of the famished lions, so that they harmed 
not the faithful prophet. His mandate opened the 
fountain of waters above, and the depths below, 
so that a mighty deluge overflowed the mountains 
of the earth. His mandate will one dav melt 
with fervent heat the elements of the material uni- 
verse. His mandate, without his becoming incar- 
nate, might, doubtless, have imparted all needful 
strength to the human son of the Virgin. 

If, then, God was made " manifest in the flesh," 
Bb 2 



294 THEORY NOT FOUNDED ON BIBLE. 

not to strengthen his terrestrial adjunct, or merely 
to impart dignity and value to creature sufferings, 
what could have been the object of his incarna- 
tion ? Scripture has intimated no other object — 
imagination can conceive no other — than the re- 
demption of the world and the manifestation of in- 
finite justice by suffering in his own divine essence. 
This is the grand central point in the system of 
salvation, to which we are drawn from all our 
wanderings by the centripetal attraction of al- 
mighty truth. 

An infinite object, of a twofold aspect, was pre- 
sented to the conclave of the Godhead. A world 
was to be saved. Divine justice was to be vindi- 
cated. That arch enemy, who had once threat- 
ened the throne of the Highest, and was waving 
his triumphant banner over one of the fairest prov- 
inces of the universal empire created by the eter- 
nal Son, was to be consigned to chains of ever- 
lasting darkness. The eternal Son, who had once 
baffled that enemy in heaven, was to complete 
his conquest on earth. A new, and "strange," 
and glorious development of infinite love was to 
be displayed. A new, and " strange," and aw T ful 
demonstration of infinite justice was to astound the 
universe — to be reverberated through eternity. 
The second person in the Trinity, in the fulness 
of time, descended from heaven, and shrouded his 



THEORY MAKES BIBLE A METAPHOR. 295 

divinity in the vestment of flesh. It was the de- 
scent of a God ; and his movements on earth were 
to be the footsteps of a God. His absence from 
the celestial court was not merely that he might 
pass through the ceremony of incarnation, and 
thence return, untouched by pain, to his native 
heavens, wearing on his triumphant brow the 
cheap-earned trophies of an enemy subdued and 
a world redeemed. The trophies which he earn- 
ed on earth were earned by the bloody sweat, the 
viewless, nameless agonies of a suffering, dying 
God. It was not for the purpose of a ceremoni- 
ous incarnation ; it was that, with divine throes 
and spasms unimaginable by men or angels, he 
might save a perishing race, and fix on adaman- 
tine foundations the everlasting column of infinite 
justice, that he left vacant — if we may so say — 
for more than thirty years of what we call time, 
the right-hand seat of the celestial throne. 

Thirdly. The prevalent theory imparts a figu- 
rative signification, not merely to a few inspired 
passages, but to all that mighty mass of scriptural 
truths which, having for their basis the sufferings 
of Christ, constitute the sinews, and arteries, and 
very heart of the Bible. By figurative significa- 
tion we mean every departure from the literal and 
obvious import of the words interpreted, by what- 
ever name the authors of such departure may 



296 THEORY MAKES BIBLE A METAPHOR. 

choose to characterize it. That the vital elements 
of the Bible consist in the expiatory agonies of the 
incarnate God, no Christian will doubt. It is the 
merit of those sufferings which renders it the book 
of hope, the star of comfort, the rock of confi- 
dence. What would have been the Bible without 
the atoning pangs of Christ ? It would have been 
a desert of cheerless sands, with no spot of rec- 
reating green, no cooling spring to cheer the 
mournful journey from the cradle to an unquiet 
grave. 

If the abounding scriptural passages declara- 
tive of Christ's sufferings are to be received in 
their literal and obvious import, then the conclu- 
sion that his Godhead participated in his expiato- 
ry agonies is just as certain as the conclusion that 
his Godhead became incarnate. This great cen- 
tral truth of the Bible has received the seal of 
each august person of the Trinity. The Holy 
Ghost promulged it often in the Old Testament, 
and unceasingly in the New. The blessed Son 
proclaimed it from the time he began to preach 
glad tidings on earth until his stupendous reap- 
pearance at Patmos. The infinite Father confirm- 
ed it when he summoned his sleeping sword to 
awake and smite his Fellow. This great central 
truth has passed into scriptural demonstration, if 
the asseverations of the Bible are not to be lost in 



THEORY MAKES BIBLE A METAPHOR. 297 

allegory. The Bible and the prevalent theory- 
stand in direct collision. To escape the dilemma, 
the theory invokes its transmuting powers. The 
scriptural truths must be made to evaporate in 
metaphor, or the theory of fifteen centuries cannot 
be sustained. 

There is nothing on the face of the scriptural 
passages indicating a figurative meaning. Their 
conversion into figures of speech is not required 
or justified by any other portions of Holy Writ. 
The subject matter of the passages would seem 
to interdict figurative interpretation. The Holy 
Ghost is recounting the sufferings and death of his 
brother God. Pathos, when profound, is wont to 
select, for the outpourings of the heart, the plain- 
est and most simple terms to be found in speech. 
" Jesus wept" and " It is finished" are akin, in ex- 
pressive brevity and grandeur, to that most con- 
cise, yet most sublime of sentences, " God said, 
Let there be light, and there was light." 

Theological science has no authority delegated 
from above to veil the simplicity of scriptural truth 
beneath drapery woven in the looms of earth. On 
this theme we would, if in our power, give such 
compass to the voice of our feeble remonstrance 
as to make it heard and felt in every school of sa- 
cred lore. Even a human record is held sacred. 



298 THEORY MAKES BIBLE A METAPHOR. 

It carries on its face incontrovertible verity. It 
speaks for itself; and its responses are unalterable 
as the imagined decrees of classic fate. It can- 
not be impeached from without. Should the at- 
tempt be made, the mandatory voice of the law 
would exclaim, " Travel not out of the record." 
An effort to turn into figures of speech its plain 
and simple language would indicate aberration of 
intellect. The Bible is a heavenly record. It 
was indited by the third of the Sacred Three, and 
sealed with the blood of the second. Of this in- 
spired record, the Holy Ghost is the interpreter. 
God is the expounder of the words of God. 

Theological lore may evolve the latent mean- 
ing of scripture, by comparing sacred texts with 
sacred texts, for that still leaves it to God to ex- 
plain himself. It may borrow elucidations from 
scriptural history and scriptural geography, for 
they are constituent, though inferior parts of the 
sacred volume. It may treat particular passages 
as figurative, if necessary to preserve the sym- 
metry of scripture. It may, for instance, teach us 
to believe that the scriptural delineations of the 
corporeal lineaments of the disimbodied Deity are 
figurative, because we are elsewhere taught in the 
Bible that " God is a Spirit." But where the scrip- 
tural terms themselves indicate no departure from 
directness of meaning, and come not into collision 



THEORY MAKES BIBLE A METAPHOR. 299 

with other parts of Holy Writ, academic science 
has no right to plant in the sacred soil metaphors 
of human growth. A still, small voice ever whis- 
pers from above, " Travel not out of the record of 
God.' 9 The conversion of plain language into 
figurative language may shake the foundations of 
our faith. It may fearfully " add unto," or " take 
away from the book" of life, which closed with the 
last chapter of Revelation. The imputation of 
metaphorical signification to the sacred and clear 
passages declarative of Christ's agonies subtracts 
from the atonement of the Bible its suffering God, 
and sinks the great expiatory sacrifice from its 
scriptural infinitude down to a finite atom, 

The boldest development of reasoning pride is 
the right which it often claims and exercises to 
construe scripture by its own microscopic views 
of what is " fitting to God." This dangerous er- 
ror formed, as we have seen, the major proposi- 
tion of the Athanasian syllogism. Without it, the 
prevalent theory might not have held Christendom 
in its fetters for fifteen successive centuries. Stand 
forth, reasoning pride, and let us commune to- 
gether. You say that it is not " fitting to God" to 
suffer, even from his own free volition and sover- 
eign choice. And what think you, then, of the 
holy incarnation ? Declare. Is it " fitting to God," 
the infinite Spirit, to have " been made flesh, and 



300 THEORY SINKS DEVOTION. 

/ITwelt among us ?" Is it " fitting to God," the great 
God, to have been born in a manger, and wrapped 
in its straw ? Is it " fitting to God," the architect 
of the universe, to have been a laborious journey- 
man in the workshop of Joseph ? Is it " fitting to 
God," accustomed to the ministration of angels, to 
have washed the feet of his betraying and desert- 
ing disciples ? Is it " fitting to God," the object 
of heaven's hallelujahs, to have submitted in meek- 
ness to the scoffings, and scourgings, and spittings 
of the blaspheming mob ? When you have re- 
sponded to all these interrogatories, you may be 
the better able to appreciate the soundness of your 
favourite dogma, that it is not " fitting to God" 
to suffer. 

Fourthly. The prevalent theory tends to lower 
the eye of devotion from the Godhead of Christ to 
his manhood. To worship the created humanity 
of Mary's son alone, would be idolatrous worship. 
To love the glorified man more than the indwell- 
ing God, would be impiously loving the creature 
more than the Creator. We should love the whole 
united being of Christ. We should love the finite 
much ; the infinite unspeakably more. The in- 
stinct of our nature leads us to regard, with pecu- 
liar favour, him who has bestowed on us signal 
benefits, especially if the tomb has closed over our 
benefactor. Affection preserves in fond remem- 



THEORY AIDS U N IT A R I A NI S M. 301 

brance the gift of a departed friend. A grateful 
country bedews, with overflowing tears, the grave 
of the patriot who has suffered and died for its 
sake. And if we are taught to consider the pa- 
thetic story of Christ's agonies and death as but 
the biography of the human son of the Virgin, and 
to regard the indwelling God, through all his in- 
carnation, as standing aloof from pains, wrapped 
in the mantle of impassibility, our warm affections 
may be drawn too much from the impassible God, 
and placed too fondly on the suffering man. In 
blotting out from the scriptural picture the soul- 
absorbing and soul-expanding agonies of the in- 
carnate Deity, and fixing the mental vision on the 
suffering manhood of Christ, the prevalent theory 
gives the human figure too attractive a place on 
the canvass. It tends to impair the spirituality 
and sublimity of worship, and to sink devotion, as 
it were, from heaven down to earth. 

Fifthly. The prevalent theory unwittingly 
strengthens the Unitarian error. The startling 
syllogism of Arius stood thus : The divine essence 
is impassible : Christ suffered in both his celestial 
and human natures ; therefore, his celestial nature 
was not divine. Had the Council of Nice made 
but a single thrust at the major proposition of this 
syllogism, the heresy of Arius would scarcely have 
outlived its author. But, unfortunately, the fa- 

C c 



302 THEORY AIDS U N IT ARI A N IS M. 

thers of the Nicene Council assented to its major 
proposition ; they conceded the hypothesis of God's 
impassibility. They had then nothing left but to 
declare against its minor proposition — the suffer- 
ing of Christ in his united natures — a dubious war. 
Modern Unitarianism, except in its very lowest 
grade, rests on the same identical syllogism. 

We regard the Unitarian heresy as the most 
formidable foe of our holy religion. The polar 
region of wintry Atheism is bound in its own 
eternal frosts. Professed Infidelity can never be 
perennial where the warm pulsations of the human 
heart are felt. The creative spirit of a Hume or 
a Gibbon may, ever and anon, breathe into it the 
breath of precarious life ; but, whenever the strong 
stimulant of sustaining genius is withdrawn, it 
sinks down, like Thomas Paine, a lifeless, offen- 
sive, and forgotten corse. But Unitarianism, 
decked in the beautiful habiliments of the social 
virtues, is a brilliant and dangerous meteor. Un- 
der its ever-changing phases and varying names 
it has, like a portentous comet, threatened the sys- 
tem of Christian faith for more than fifteen cen- 
turies. 

The inquirer after truth, while dwelling on the 
atonement of the prevalent theory, finds that the 
view of its creature sufferings leaves an aching 



THEORY AIDS UN IT ARI A NISM. 303 

void in his heart. This unsatisfied vacuity ever 
invites the intrusion of seductive, and often fatal 
errors. If Christendom would extirpate the Uni- 
tarian heresy, let a concentrated blow be aimed 
at the major proposition of its upholding syllogism. 
Wrest from it its earth- woven mantle of the divine 
impassibility. Strip it of its armour of proof. 
That Christ suffered in his united natures is a po- 
sition deeply bedded in the everlasting truth of 
sacred writ. The hypothesis of God's impassibil- 
ity has no foundation in his holy word. Divine 
impassibility is the chief corner-stone of the Uni- 
tarian faith. Remove that corner-stone, and the 
whole structure will totter to its foundation. 



304 ADVANTAGES OF OUR VIEWS. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Practical Effects of Doctrine of Divinity of Christ's Sufferings- 
Deepens Views of Sin — Exalts Justice of God — His Love — Mag- 
nifies Value of Soul — Affords sure Foundation of Christian Confi- 
dence — Elevates Views of Atonement. 

We shall doubtless be accused of attempting 
to disturb one of the ancient landmarks of Christian 
faith. That this attempt is not a wanton innova- 
tion, may have appeared from the preceding pages. 
Yet farther to vindicate and illustrate our discus- 
sion, it will be useful, at the hazard of some seem- 
ing, though not real repetition, to state succinctly 
the respective and opposing bearings of the prev- 
alent theory, and of that which we advocate, upon 
some of the cardinal points of our holy religion. 
It will thence become manifest that our views are 
as salutary in practice as they are well-founded in 
scriptural authority. 

First. The development of the stupendous truth 
that the eternal Son, " manifest in the flesh," suf- 
fered and died, in his own ethereal essence, for the 
redemption of the world, unfolds to our apprehen- 
sion new and more appalling exhibitions of the 
potency and turpitude of sin than are presented 
by the prevalent theory. If we have confidence 



OUR VIEWS DEEPEN SIN. 305 

in the wisdom of an earthly physician, we are 
best taught the extremity of a physical malady by 
learning the extremity of the means to which he is 
driven for its cure. Should he find himself obliged, 
by efforts beyond mortal endurance, to sacrifice 
his own life for the life of his patient, it would be 
an affecting demonstration, not only of his match- 
less compassion, but also of the inveterate malig- 
nancy of the disease, which he could not other- 
wise assuage. 

There is a principle of evil in the universe sec- 
ond only to Omnipotence in its fearful power. It 
once, with exulting hopes of success, unfurled its 
standard of rebellion in the very capital of the em- 
pire of the Highest, within the sound of the thun- 
ders of his almighty throne, drawing after it one 
third part of the bright intelligences of heaven. 
To check this principle of evil, and confine it with- 
in secure limits, without infringing the freedom of 
creature volition and action, requires from infinite 
wisdom, perhaps, its highest development. This 
evil principle is not less blighting than it is potent. 
It has converted our terrestrial Eden into a howl- 
ing wilderness. It is the creator and eternal pre- 
server of its own indwelling hell. Sin's own un- 
changing laws, engraven on tablets which time 
cannot moulder, have immutably ordained that 
every creature of this or any other world, who 

Cc2 



306 OUR VIEWS EXALT GOd's JUSTICE. 

transgresses, must bid adieu to bliss, unless there 
be a renovation of his moral nature. He will for- 
ever carry within him the undjing worm. His 
own breast must be the everlasting receptacle and 
feeder of the quenchless, yet unconsuming fire. 
He cannot escape it by flight : 

" For within him hell 
He brings, and round about him, nor from hell 
One step, no more than from himself, can fly- 
By change of place." 

These awful yet salutary truths are best brought 
home to the soul by a close meditation, not only 
on the visible death of expiation at Calvary, but 
also, and beyond measure more especially, on the 
spiritual crucifixion of the only-begotten, the eter- 
nal Son of the Highest. How fearfully deleteri- 
ous must be that wide-spread principle of evil, the 
mere local development of which required, as a 
preliminary to its pardon, such an atoning sacri- 
fice ! How frightful must have been the virulence 
of that moral malady, which could only be cured 
by the blood of God ! 

Secondly. We would not, by limiting the expi- 
atory sufferings to the manhood of Christ, detract, 
as the prevalent theory unspeakably detracts, from 
the sublime exhibition of the justice of the triune 
God, manifested in the great work of redemption, 
and portrayed with such ineffable simplicity, pa- 



OUR VIEWS EXALT GOD's JUSTICE. 307 

thos, and power in the sacred oracles. The exe- 
cution of the scriptural scheme of the atonement, 
whose vicarious victim was the architect of the 
worlds, elicited a development of the inflexible 
justice of the Godhead, new and " strange" in the 
annals of eternity. Compared with it, the expul- 
sion of the third part of heaven from their bless- 
ed abodes ; compared with it, the impassable ram- 
parts of hell, and its adamantine vaults, and quench- 
less fires, and ceaseless wailings, might pass with- 
out special wonder, we would almost say, as per- 
taining to the ordinary administration of the sys- 
tem of penal jurisprudence, ordained by a wise 
and righteous God for the government of his 
boundless empire. 

But if permitted to behold a scene, perhaps 
too sacred for creature vision, how must the hie- 
rarchies of heaven have stood aghast, as the An- 
cient of Days, arrayed in the most awful habili- 
ments of avenging omnipotence, drew forth from 
its long repose his own almighty sword — the 
sharpest weapon in the armory of the Godhead — 
to smite — as a God alone could smite, and with 
an effect which a God alone could endure — the 
beloved and unresisting fellow of his everlasting 
reign ! Let not the dwellers upon the earth be 
taught to regard this sublimest of scriptural delin- 
eations as magnificent imagery alone, fitly evolv- 



308 OUR VIEWS EXALT GOD*S JUSTICE. 

ed by Oriental metaphor. To suppose that the 
Lord of Hosts awakened his slumbering sword — 
slumbering, perhaps, from the earliest eternity — 
to smite the mere frail humanity of him who was 
cradled in the manger, would be to sink, in mortal 
estimation, this stupendous scene in the annals of 
the Godhead from the infinite down to the finite. 

That demonstration of infinite justice which 
forms the prominent and august feature of the 
atonement consists in the awful truth that God 
the Father " spared not his own Son, but deliver- 
ed him up for us all." And ever mark the migh- 
ty terms " his own Son !" The theory of earth, 
which virtually holds that the eternal Son was 
spared ; that the unspared one of the Father was 
but the human son of Mary ; that the eternal Son 
suffered no more to redeem our fallen race than 
he did in their creation, robs the atonement of all 
its magnificence. Let it not be alleged that God 
the Father "spared not his own Son, but delivered 
him up for us all," and thus satisfied the plenitude ot 
the declaration of the Holy Ghost, when, for a 
space brief compared with eternity, he allowed him 
to depart from the celestial courts, and to dwell 
on earth in a tabernacle of clay, carrying, how- 
ever, with him the undiminished beatitude of the 
Godhead, in the same way as an earthly father 
may be said to spare not his own son, but to deliv- 



OUR VIEWS MAGNIFY GOd's LOVE. 309 

er him up, when he sends him from the domestic 
hearth, to sojourn for a season in foreign climes ! 
We would not willingly impute to the prevalent 
theory so irreverent a prostration of the majesty 
of the atonement. 

Thirdly. Nor would we derogate, as the prev- 
alent theory immeasurably derogates, from the 
infinite love displayed by the triune God in the 
redemption of the world. Let it never be forgot- 
ten that the sending of his well-beloved Son by 
the infinite Father to be the ransom of our fallen 
race, and the voluntary acceptance of that terri- 
ble mission by the infinite Son, and the contribu- 
tory agency of the Holy Ghost to render the mis- 
sion efficacious, are everywhere represented in 
scripture as the concentration and sublimation of 
the ineffable love of the united Godhead ; compa- 
red with which the displays of divine goodness, in 
the variegated works of creation, sink, as it were, 
into comparative unimportance. It was a distant 
and twilight glimpse of this sublime development 
of infinite love that awakened to such unearthly 
harmony the consecrated harps of the prophets 
and inspired patriarchs of old. It was a clearer 
view of this stupendous miracle of grace, un- 
matched even by the Godhead, that ever and anon 
roused the profoundly argumentative Paul to such 
bursts of holy rhapsody. It was this view, melt- 



310 OUR VIEWS SHOW VALUE OF SOUL. 

ing the heart of the beloved disciple, which 
prompted that simplest, that most touching, that 
most comprehensive and expressive of scriptural 
sentences, " God is love." 

And do all these sublime indications of scripture 
point, indeed, to nothing but the simple fact that 
the second person of the Trinity, by the mandate 
of the Father and his own volition, condescend- 
ingly and graciously came into the world, to oc- 
cupy for a time, in all the perfection of infinite be- 
atitude, the " body" that was prepared for him, 
and then to return, untouched by suffering, to his 
celestial home, and there receive the rapturous 
gratulations of heaven on his having just created, 
from a moral chaos, a new spiritual world, more 
glorious than any of those which, at the beginning 
of time, had roused the swelling anthem of the 
" morning stars ?" Such is not the scriptural pic- 
ture of the love of the Godhead displayed in the 
redemption of the world. 

Fourthly. If we may justly conclude that the 
second person of the Trinity, clothed in flesh, suf- 
fered and died for the redemption of the human 
soul, not in his manhood alone, but also in his God- 
head, the conclusion will impart new and ineffable 
value to the immaterial, breathing, living, immor- 
tal principle within us. Seneca, the heathen phi- 



OUR VIEWS SHOW VALUE OF SOUL. 311 

losopher, termed the soul a " little god cased in 
flesh." The Bible imparts to it a rank higher 
than was ever imagined in the dreams of pagan 
mythology. God formed material man " of the 
dust of the ground ;" but he " breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life, and man became a liv- 
ing soul." The soul of man, then, is an emana- 
tion of the Deity. It is a spirit kindred to the 
ethereal essence of its almighty Creator. Christ, 
while on earth, interrogatively declared that it 
would be a losing contract for a man to barter, 
for the whole world, his own soul. This theo- 
retic proposition, like other abstract truths, even 
of the Bible, is best brought home to the heart 
by practical elucidation. If we would see it 
thus illustrated by its divine Author, let us stand 
beside his viewless cross, and, in contemplating 
his unseen spiritual and divine sufferings for its 
ransom, learn at what price the soul was rated in 
the celestial exchequer. 

If man would become familiar with the distant 
bodies of the material heavens, let him borrow of 
science its glorious instrument of discovery, which 
will enable him to walk. 

" Abroad through nature, to the range 
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres, 
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense." 

The science of sacred truth, too, has its telescope ; 



312 OUR VIEWS SHOW VALUE OF SOUL. 

and if we would gain still clearer views of the 
value of the breathing immortality within us, let 
us, through that consecrated medium of vision, fix 
our steadfast and wondering gaze on the onward 
flight of a single soul through the ages of its eter- 
nity. It must sink " a goblin damned," or rise a 
spirit of bliss. In the rank soil of the world of 
blasphemy, it will, in successive ages, swell to a 
mammoth of guilt ; or, in the pure atmosphere of 
heaven, it will, in its upward progress, brighten 
into an archangel, ministering before the throne 
of God. The prospective omniscience of the infi- 
nite Son, standing by the grave of a world " dead 
in trespasses and sins," beheld its countless perish- 
ing souls, of value too precious to be ascertained, 
save by the arithmetic of heaven. He pitied — he 
redeemed ; he redeemed by the immolation of 
himself. Great was the price ; greater, in the es- 
timate of infinite love, was the redemption pur- 
chased. 

Beautiful and glorious is the material universe. 
Beautiful is our own queen of night ; glorious our 
own king of day. Brilliant are yonder stars that 
spangle the firmament; surpassingly majestic when 
we regard them as centres of their own expand- 
ing systems, attracting and ruling their own wheel- 
ing orbs. But to save all these, the Son of God 
would not have died ; to redeem them all from 



CHRISTIAN CONFIDENCE. 313 

one vast consuming conflagration, he would not 
have laid down his most precious life. He could 
have spoken new suns and systems into being. To 
impart moral life to a single soul dead in iniquity, 
he was obliged to die himself. When seen in the 
scriptural mirror, why will not man learn to ap- 
preciate that deathless soul, whose matchless value 
is so well known in heaven? Why will man, 
reckless man, madly throw away that inestimable 
gem, whose ransom cost the death of a God? 
How could centuries have cherished a theory 
which, by sinking, without scriptural authority, 
the redeeming price, would lower, in the estima- 
tion of the dwellers upon the earth, the value of 
their immortal souls ; 

Fifthly. The sufferings of Christ, in his God- 
head, afford a foundation for Christian confidence 
unknown to the prevalent theory. The anxious 
inquirer after religious truth, from whose eyes the 
scales have begun to fall, gazes, now at the fright- 
ful turpitude of sin, now at the " consuming fire" 
of Jehovah's wrath. He hears, close behind him, 
the cry of the avenger of blood. He must reach 
a city of refuge, or miserably perish. The prev- 
alent theory points him to one. He finds it built 
of creature sufferings. In vain, at least for the 
time, is urged the dignity and atoning value im- 
parted to the sufferings by the juxtaposition of in- 

Dd 



314 CHRISTIAN CONFIDENCE. 

dwelling divinity. He searches, without success, 
for any traces of the theory in Holy Writ. Meta- 
physical speculation soothes not his sin-tossed spir- 
it. It is an icicle to his soul. He must become an 
adept in the prevalent theory before he can cast 
himself, for eternity, on vicarious sufferings less 
than divine. 

Perhaps, gentle reader, you may yourself be an 
anxious, and, as yet, unbiased inquirer after re- 
ligious truth. You may be seeking, as for hidden 
treasure, a sure foundation for the sinner's hope. 
Turn, then, to the Book of books. Read the con- 
current testimony of the blessed Trinity, that its 
glorious second person endured the infinite burden 
of the vicarious sufferings to save our perishing 
world ; to save even you, if you will but accept 
his " great salvation." Deign to believe the dec- 
larations of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost, in all their stupendous magnitude. Accept 
as true, and sincere, and ingenuous, the assurances 
of the Sacred Three, though pertaining to things 
incomprehensible to your microscopic vision. De- 
grade not the atonement of the Godhead, by im- 
agining that its second person suffered by profes- 
sion and in name only. Change not into figures 
of speech the plain and simple proclamations which 
came down from above. 



GLORY OF ATONEMENT. 315 

The anxious, fearing, trembling inquirer after 
gospel truth, bewildered on a sea of doubt and 
darkness, without a compass or a star, may find, 
in the sufferings of the Godhead of Christ, " an 
anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and 
which entereth into that within the veil ;" " an 
anchor" formed in the conclave of the holy Trin- 
ity; "sure" as its eternal decrees; " steadfast " as 
the pillars of its everlasting throne. Christian 
confidence, founded on the expiatory agonies of 
the Creator of the worlds, may look down, as from 
the heaven of heavens, on all that this poor earth 
miscalls " sure and steadfast." He who has the 
witness within himself that he is to be partaker 
in the salvation wrought by the divine sufferings 
of the dying God, may, from the depths of his 
grateful, weeping, joyous heart, triumphantly ex- 
claim with the exulting apostle to the Gentiles, " I 
know whom I have believed, and am persuaded 
that He is able to keep that which I have com- 
mitted to him against that day." 

Sixthly. We delight to dwell on the atonement, 
built of the sufferings and cemented by the blood 
of God, in all its scriptural magnificence. It is, 
beyond peradventure, the mightiest effort of al- 
mighty power. God spake, and chaos became a 
universe of moving worlds. He could not speak . 
into being the structure of salvation. Its forma- 



316 GLORY OF ATONEMENT. 

tion cost him his incarnation, his sufferings, his 
death. It is the rainbow glory of heaven, con- 
centrating in mild, yet bright effulgence, the min- 
gling and harmonious rays of infinite justice, infi- 
nite wisdom, and infinite love. Upon the just 
proportions, the beautiful simplicity, the exquisite 
symmetry, the lofty grandeur of this choicest pa- 
vilion of the Godhead, the holy curiosity of cher- 
ubim and seraphim will be riveted for countless 
ages after time shall be no more. It will be re- 
membered in hell. Devils will gnash their teeth ; 
but " devils damned" dare not, cannot scoff. For- 
ever must they gaze on this wonder of wonders, 
this everlasting monument of their Conqueror's 
triumph, in silent, in speechless despair. 

What gives to this structure its transcendent 
majesty is the divinity of the sufferings of which 
it was composed. Haft not the throes and blood 
of its suffering, dying, risen God pervaded and 
formed its constituent elements, it would have 
been a splendid pageant that might dazzle, but 
could not satisfy created intelligences. Let not 
the children of men seek to mar its beauty or dim 
its glory. It was on earth that its foundations 
were laid. It is earth that it has redeemed. Let 
not earth alone, of all the provinces of the uni- 
versal empire, seek to pluck from this temple of 
salvation its everlasting corner-stone. 



APPENDIX, 



ARGUMENT OF ATHANASIUS, REFERRED TO AT PAGE 40. 

AGAINST THOSE WHO ASSERT THAT, BECAUSE GOD SO WILLED. 
HE SUFFERED. 

As the traveller avoids every wandering from his road, and 
would suffer any inconvenience sooner than leave the high- 
way, thus the pilgrims in the path of sound doctrine follow 
the footprints of those who never leave the way ; and when 
they have learned the landmarks of their journey, they guard 
against any departure therefrom, and so are always guided in 
the truth. But some disregard this aim, and please them- 
selves in unbelief, and abandon the footsteps of the orthodox 
fathers, and the landmarks that the divine instructers have 
set up, and follow by-paths, some discovered by heretics of 
old, some, at the present time, by themselves. Thus they 
assert this unreasonable dogma : God suffered because he so 
willed. Being unable to demonstrate the passibility of God's 
nature, they do not hesitate to utter untruths concerning his 
will ; and if questioned concerning the Divine nature, their 
answer relates to his will. If God's nature were capable of 
suffering, then it might be permitted to consider his will ; 
but though, for the sake of argument, such a volition were 
conceded many times, yet could that concession not shake 
the immoveable laws of Nature. What madness, then, to 
assert, that he suffered because he so willed ! What rational 
man is unaware that will and nature must harmonize 1 That 
tlie ends of nature and the ends of volition must unite, is a 
truth self-evident ; and equally so that their limits are fixed, 

and their aims regulated by nature and intelligence. He that 

Dd2 



318 APPENDIX. 

would assert the contrary would put nature and the will in 
hostile array, the latter longing for that which is impossible, 
or the former admitting conditions elementally destructive to 
itself. That essence that, by its constitution, setting will 
aside, may admit suffering is passible ; but that essence, 
which in its nature and being is inconsistent with suffering, 
may not assume the condition of passibility, though its will 
may strongly thereto consent. Each class of animated be- 
ings retains the law and form of its first creation, and main- 
tains it irreversibly. Should man ofttimes and earnestly de- 
sire to be a bird, yet would nature as often overcome that 
will ; should he long for the spirit of an unreasoning brute, 
yet would it be but a foolish thought and an unaccomplished 
design. Now as Nature thus displays her unconquerable 
power, and her superiority to the despotism of all opposing 
volitions, shall the unchanging and undying essence of God 
alone yield itself to be shackled by the will 1 Wonderful 
thought ! Shall that which guards with watchful care all es- 
sences, and conserves each in its sphere, shall that alone be 
thus easily driven from the bounds of impassibility, and God 
the Creator possess less inflexibility than he has bestowed on 
every creature 1 But let us inquire of what prophet or apos- 
tle they receive this erroneous doctrine, that he thus willed 1 
From none. The error springs from and rests on the light 
authority of those who maintain it. We have neither read 
he suffered, nor found he willed to suffer. What holy man 
ever saw suffer the invisible and impassible God, or to whom 
hath he revealed such a will] O the boldness of man to 
trample over invisible powers ! For who hath ascended into 
heaven 1 who transcended thrones, principalities, powers, do- 
minions, majesties 1 Who hath flown beyond the flight of 
the seraphim] Who hath seen the things concealed from 
their eyes 1 Who hath found out the nature of God in voli- 
tion and suffering, when the Scriptures have not revealed it ] 
We have heard that he hath performed his good pleasure ; 
but that he suffered, and because he willed, we have nowhere 
learned. Why, then, mingle instability with unchangeabili- 



APPENDIX. 319 

ty 1 This is madness, not wisdom. The truth is the reverse 
of this. Christ suffered, indeed, but it was in the flesh of 
mortal men, and not in his immortal Word. 



AGAINST THOSE WHO ASSERT THAT THE EXPRESSIONS OF SCRIP- 
TURE SHOULD BE RECEIVED LITERALLY, WITHOUT REGARD TO 
THEIR TRUE MEANING AND SPIRITUAL IMPORT. 

With great difficulty are those silenced who would sub- 
vert the constitution of the human mind, restraining men 
from the exercise of reason, and from the knowledge of nat- 
ural truth and loveliness, by telling their followers that the 
expressions of Holy Writ are to be received literally, with- 
out examination, without discussion, without comparison, and 
without reference to the end for which they have been uttered. 
If, then, as they counsel, men should overlook the end and 
the meaning of the expressions of Scripture, and receive them 
literally and irrationally, would it not be to allow the words 
of apostles and prophets to echo through the ears in vain and 
unfruitful sounds, while the heart remained untouched and 
unaffected 1 When they advise to listen with the ears, but 
strive not for that fruitful perception which belongs to the 
heart, the curse attaches to them, to listen with the ears and 
not perceive. Thus they say, the phrase, " the Word became 
flesh," is to be understood literally, and not in the sense 
pious reason would put upon the words ; as if it were in their 
power to wrest the conception of any person from that which 
is befitting and profitable to that which pleases themselves. 
Shall I listen to words, and seek not for the idea intended 
thereby to be conveyed 1 Where, then, would be the results 
of discourse and the profit of listening 1 How quickly would 
they transform men into unreasoning beasts by such proposi- 
tions ; to listen to sounds of words and neglect the deduc- 
tions of reason. Paul, who was a teacher in such affairs, did 
not thus instruct ; his precepts were, to receive nothing save 
upon the sanction of right reason ; thus, solid food belongs to 
grown men, who by exercise are able to discriminate be- 



320 APPENDIX. 

tween good and evil. He advises perfection, praises exer- 
cise, recommends a sober judgment between good and evil. 
But how can he judge who discerns not the matters revealed 1 
For, as the man whose senses are disordered by disease has 
no true perception of aliments nor their properties, so the 
man who, from idleness or stolidity, is unexercised in his 
mental faculties, apprehends the words he hears, but gathers 
not the force of the argument, nor perceives the distinctions 
in the ideas intended to be conveyed. His participation is 
heedless and irrational, like the beast who devours the nu- 
tritive and hurtful as they may chance to offer. Nor is he to 
be numbered among clean beasts, since he does not ruminate, 
but transmits a crude and unprepared mass of mental food to 
the inner man. Thus he receives injury from imperfect di- 
gestion, rather than support to his vital powers. Is any one 
ignorant that the command of the Divine law enjoins a scru- 
tiny upon him who is bidden to sup at the table of a ruler, 
and diligently to consider what is placed before him 1 Thus, 
it is manifest that we are not to make the words of Scripture 
our prey, but we must consider what is fitting to God, useful 
to man, consonant with truth, in harmony with the law, re- 
sponsive to nature ; to that which faith may know, on which 
hope may build and the sincerity of love adopt, whereby the 
glory of God may shine untarnished, envy be vanquished, 
grace justified. These elements co-exist in the meditations 
of piety, but find no place in these absurd novelties, whose 
dependance is upon mad theories. To conclude, he who re- 
ceives the texts of Scripture literally and neglects the mean- 
ing cannot understand passages that seem to clash ; he can 
find no proper solution thereto, give no answer to inquiries, 
and cannot fulfil the precept, be careful always to have that 
whereby thou mayest answer him who inquires. 



APPENDIX. 321 



AGAINST THOSE WHO ASSERT THAT GOD THE WORD SUFFERED 
IN THE FLESH. 

I wonder that the inventors of these new doctrines seem 
never tired in their search or introduction of novelties, but 
are always frivolously propounding theories like the one we 
now proceed to confute, that God the Word suffered in the 
flesh. In this proposition there is much that is irrational, 
and much that is untrue. It is irrational to say one nature 
suffered in another ; untrue to say the Word suffered. That 
which they would not dare to express unqualifiedly they con- 
ceal by the addition of "the flesh ;" thus they would cover 
up this revolting idea, in the same manner as is an ugly face, 
by a deceitful mask. If the Word suffered, he suffered in 
his own essence. If aught else suffered, then the Word did 
not suffer, unless that injury which was directed alone against 
the suffering body may be considered as recoiling on the 
Word thereto united. To say, however, the Word suffer- 
ed in the flesh is unscriptural, untrue, self-contradictory. 
But as these men are unbounded in impiety, and are con- 
scious that pious ears will not listen to the expression " the 
Word suffered," they subjoin the expression " the flesh," in 
order to heal the wounds wrought by the other. Thus they 
would introduce disease, and heal by improper remedies ; for 
none of these doctrines are consonant with truth ; and fre- 
quently in the same sentence are contained contradictions, 
so that rational men can give them no attention. The Word 
was not rendered passible by being joined to the flesh, nor 
was the flesh impassible through the agency of the Word ; 
but as the body, by its nature, admitted the influence of suf- 
fering, so the Word retained impassibility, as an essential 
and inseparable attribute. If the Word suffered, w r hy subjoin 
the addition " in the flesh V Whv mention the flesh 1 The 
body suffered with the Word, or it did not. If it did not suf- 
fer, impassibility was bestowed on it. If it suffered, then the 
proof is that both natures suffered ; for, as they say, the 
Word suffered in the flesh, and the body, by its own consti- 



322 APPENDIX. 

tutjon, suffered in its proper nature. But perhaps the decla- 
ration of the apostle may be urged, " Of whom, as concerning 
the flesh, is Christ." Say Christ suffered, and the word flesh 
recurs in the same manner. He who names God the Word 
names a pure essence ; he who names Christ designates one 
in whom two natures are united ; and thus it is with pro- 
priety we say Christ suffered, because this name implies at 
once the impassible Word and the body which tasted death. 
Wherefore Paul did not use the expression, of whom is the 
pure God after the flesh, but " Of whom is Christ after the 
flesh," in order that he might indicate him who was intended 
of the Israelites, as pertains to the body ; but as pertains to 
his divinity, the begotten of God the Father. He did not say, 
of whom is God after the flesh. But say this, if you would 
convince me Christ suffered in the flesh. And if you please 
to say God suffered in the flesh, then tell me, are God and 
the flesh the same, or different in nature 1 If they are the 
same, then did God suffer in his own nature ; for God and 
the flesh are in nature the same. But if they are different, 
how does the one suffer in the other, since suffering induces 
no change in the essence 1 Thus man does not suffer in a 
horse ; the soul dies not in the flesh, but the flesh is dissol- 
ved, and the soul separated therefrom ; and yet the man, con- 
sisting of soul and body, is called dead, but yet only in that 
nature which may die, that is, the body, not the immortal 
soul ; for no one has ever said of the soul of man that it has 
died in the body ; but the man, the union of soul and body, 
has died. Thus the Scriptures, when about to establish the 
immortality of the soul after death, say the just live forever. 
An appeal to Scripture condemns altogether these men ; for, 
notwithstanding the number of prophets and apostles, we find 
nowhere an expression like theirs. On the other hand, that 
Christ suffered is universally announced. Christ, our pass- 
over, is offered for us. If Christ be passible, he died for our 
sins, according to the Scriptures. The cross is Christ's, the 
body Christ's, the blood Christ's. How is it possible that 
they can neglect so great a cloud of witnesses, and prefer 



APPENDIX. 323 

their own private judgment to the authority of the Spirit 1 
Thus they would violate the command which forbids to trans- 
gress the ancient landmarks that your fathers iiave placed, 
and would disregard the decision of the great and holy Coun- 
cil of Nice, the fathers of which council with unanimity have 
placed in their creed the name of the Lord Jesus Christ next 
to God the Father ; and to him they have ascribed the lofty 
attributes of Godhead and the beneficial faculties of his own 
manhood : according to the words of the blessed Paul, other 
foundation can no man lay than is laid, namely, Jesus Christ. 
We have not abandoned that foundation — a recipient of glory 
in one nature, of suffering in the other. If you name him 
God alone, how can you lay on him the needed passion ! If 
you name him man alone, then how can he contain the vast 
riches of incomprehensible glory 1 But it is our duty to call 
him Christ ; hereby he reaps the fruit of glory in the God- 
head, while in his manhood he bears suffering, and in the in- 
separable union works all miracles, and bestows all blessings 
on the faithful. Thus the impassibility of the Deity, the 
reality of the passion, and the universal advantage of man- 
kind are made sure. In this manner the clear word of truth, 
the foundation of unshaken faith, the glorious greatness of 
the mystery, the marvel worthy of the credence of antiquity, 
the unfading beauty of orthodoxy, and the harmonious belief 
of all ages are displayed. To assert this new and wild doc- 
trine, and condemn all who deny that God the Word suffered 
in the flesh, is not only to oppose the men of this age, but to 
array an opposition to the doctors and teachers of all an- 
tiquity. Why do these men avoid the name of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, in which we are commanded to believe 1 Be- 
lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. It 
is lovely to fix the hope of salvation in this name ; for there is 
no other name given among men whereby we may be saved. 
At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things heavenly 
and things terrestrial, and of things infernal, and every tongue 
shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God 
the Father. He is judge of the living and dead. Stephen, 



324 APPENDIX. 

when dying, called on him : Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. 
There is one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things ; he 
is Saviour, rfe is Redeemer. Christ is all these. Why, then, 
avoid that beloved name 1 It hath removed disease : " In the 
name of Jesus Christ, arise and walk." It hath put to flight 
devils : " I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth, come out of her." How is it that, leaving this 
name, as if ungrateful to them, they assume an expression 
nowhere found among the holy writers : the Word suffered in 
the flesh 1 



AGAINST THOSE WHO INQUIRE, WHY SHOULD THE JEWS BE PUN- 
ISHED UNLESS IT WAS GOD WHOM THEY SLEW 1 

Argument has no power to restrain the madness of conten- 
tious men. If we advance a thousand irrefragable arguments, 
though they may display the truth, yet will they fail to con- 
vince these framers of falsehood ; for it is the punishment of 
those who, in despite of the clearest of demonstrations, have 
abandoned the truth, never to leave their own devices nor 
return to the true road ; but, continuing to travel by headlong 
by-paths, they are not ashamed to interrogate of us why the 
Jews shall be punished if they slew not God. Shameless and 
deceitful impudence ! To avenge Christ they asperse Christ. 
Thus, that the Jews may be punished, they would confuse all 
things, despise doctrine, blaspheme the impassible God by 
calling him passible, revile God's glory, tear up the order of 
the universe. Cease to avenge God by blaspheming God ; a 
defence joined with dishonour to the one defended is detest- 
able. Let Jews receive gain, if their loss is the shame of 
Christians. Rather let the guilty escape than he who suffer- 
ed acquire such advocates. Better that Jews be pardoned 
than the Godhead be reproached with mutability and passi- 
bility. Why afford such a theme of boasting to Jews as that 
they were triumphant over God I They would have had no 
power over the temple had not the inmate permitted it, who 
raised the temple when dissolved, but himself remained indis- 



APPENDIX. 325 

P 
soluble. Your opinion is contrary to the express announce- 
ment of the sufferer, and your vindication inflicts a worse 
grief than the injury you would avenge. Then wherefore 
distort the compassionate words of the Saviour Christ ; for 
at the time of the passion he said, Father, forgive them ; they 
know not what they do. And do you accuse the Jews of a 
knowledge of the presence of a God, and a conscious pollu- 
tion of themselves with his blood 1 This audacity surpasses 
that of the crucifyjng Jews. They killed Christ, deeming him 
mere man. You, while vindicating God, call him mutable, 
passible, and dead. Thus, in proportion as that man is more 
criminal who is impious towards God than he who injures 
man, so is the state of him more dreadful who, in language, 
kills God the Word, than theirs who drove the nails into the 
flesh of the Lord. But though the Jews are less impious than 
you, we revoke not their awful doom. We maintain the im- 
passibility of the Godhead of Christ, and ascribe passion to 
the manhood thereto united, and that the Jews shall be pun- 
ished for impiety towards the manifest Deity through insane 
rashness and blindness. Even now we see that those who 
lift up impious hands against the temples of God, and do this 
sacrilegiously and destructively, are punished as though they 
were impious criminals in respect of God, notwithstanding 
that their rage is outwardly directed against stones and wood. 
If, then, an inanimate temple be guarded by such severe laws, 
how much severer sanctions should protect that living and un- 
polluted temple joined ineffably and indissolubly to the living 
God ! To offer injury or insult to that holy temple must be 
considered as offering injury and insult to the God who dwelt 
therein, and who distinguished it by so many miracles. Nor 
can the Jews find any palliation of their guilt in the circum- 
stance that they appeared to sin against a mere man, while, 
to confute them, so many miracles wrought by his hand dis- 
played the glorious majesty and power of the Godhead. His 
birth was pointed out by prophecy, its place was well known, 
its manner most remarkable, the time of its accomplishment 
made certain ; every word in Scripture was declaratory of 

E e 



326 APPENDIX. 

% 
the event, the Oriental wise men came from afar to worship, 

a star prognosticated, and angels sang the nativity of the 
Saviour. Herod the king was troubled ; all Judea was filled 
with wonder, for it was the manifestation of him who should 
take away the sins of the world. Simeon takes the child in 
his arms, and calls him the salvation of God. Anna prophe- 
sies ; John, at Jordan, bears witness to him. The voice of 
the Father from heaven acknowledges him to all as the well- 
beloved Son ; the descent of the Spirit as a dove on his head 
confirms and glorifies him ; the water changed into wine, and 
five loaves multiplied to satisfy the hunger of as many thou- 
sands, while twelve baskets are filled with the fragments, 
attest his power. Diseases are healed by his word ; devils, 
expelled by his command, bear witness from afar to the ter- 
ror of his power ; even the dead are at once rescued from the 
power of the grave ; the very hem of his garment brings 
health to the sick woman, making evident the glory of the 
concealed God. Even the frame of universal nature, at the 
time of the passion, and the destruction of the visible temple 
of his body, is disturbed in divers ways ; and those who cru- 
cified him bore testimony to the reality of his resurrection ; 
for, while they watched the body of the slain, they were con- 
founded by the omnipotence of the sufferer. These things, 
and many besides, evinced the hidden Godhead, and to be 
wilfully blind to these manifestations was a crime of deep 
impiety against God. 



AGAINST THOSE WHO CALL HIM A JEW WHO DENIES THAT GOD 

SUFFERED. 

In our former arguments the conclusions were so clear, 
and so variously and manifestly demonstrated, that our ad- 
versaries ought in all fairness to acknowledge their cogency ; 
but this they do not, being intent upon weaving new and de- 
ceitful subtleties. Thus, they say he is a Jew who denies 
that God suffered. It is well that they remind us of a name 
well suited to themselves. They have drawn upon them- 



APPENDIX. 327 

selves affinity with Jews by denying the salvation of the in- 
carnation, and by rejecting the mystery of the union of the 
two natures. Let us now imagine whether he is a Jew who 
receives the gospel of grace, or he who strives for the letter 
of the law ! The gospel teaches us that the invisible God 
was manifest in visible flesh. The Jews maintain their an- 
cient traditions, wherein the Deity is represented under types 
and forms. In what manner do we call others Jews who 
reject the riches of the New Testament 1 Have we not heard 
that many prophets and just men have desired to see those 
things which we have seen, and have not been able 1 What 
have they not seen ? The God manifest in the flesh. Is it 
not written, God was seen by Abraham, by Isaac, by Jacob, 
by Moses, and by many others 1 That which they desired to 
see, and were not able, was that which we have seen, the 
ineffable and indissoluble union of Godhead and manhood. 
This is the strange sight revealed to all who by faith confess 
the adorable union of the Word and flesh. They who reject 
the assumption of human nature are convicted manifestly of 
affinity with the ancient Jews, who were unable to see the 
things we have seen. Jews are they who reject the incar- 
nate mediation of the Saviour, and to these must those be 
added, or, rather, must be considered greater criminals, who 
deny the two natures. The Jews were unable to perceive 
the Deity, though working miracles among them ; and these 
revilers of God attribute to the Word the infirmities of 
the flesh he assumed. But perhaps they will say (for they 
do not scruple to deny the most evident truths), we do not 
call the divine nature passible. Should we ask of you, ye 
cunning sophists, how it is possible that you can avoid this 
assertion, you would make answer : He suffered because 
he so willed, and thus is not passible. In this manner you 
but avoid the letter, while in your faith the error remains. 
If you condemn such as deny that God suffered, can you es- 
cape the inevitable conclusion, God is passible 1 If he be a 
Jew, in your opinion, who does not acknowledge that the di- 
vine nature suffered, and a Christian who believes it, then 



328* APPENDIX. 

the Jew thus confessing the divine impassibility must be pre- 
ferred to you who deny it ; for, of necessity, you must be 
called Jews, maintaining the impassibility, or Christians, as 
you would define the word, holding to the passibility of God. 
Then tell us plainly to which doctrine you subscribe ; for with 
the heart man believes to justification, and with the mouth 
confession is made to salvation. If the Word did not suffer, 
then the flesh did suffer. If neither suffered, then some third 
essence suffered. If nothing suffered, then there was no 
passion. If the passion took place, and yet no one suffered, 
it was but an illusion ; we are saved by a mere illusion. You 
are as impious as the Manicheans ; and why do you hesitate 
to adopt their name, when manifestly you are inheriters of 
their heresy 1 Hence is your error shown to be worse than 
that of the Jews, and nearly as impious as that of the Mani- 
cheans. Why mention Jews and Manicheans ? You are 
more resolved in guilt than he, the contriver of all evil and 
hater of all good — who hath planted these tares in your heart 
— the devil. He, when, at Jordan, the divine glory of the Sav- 
iour was manifested, though urged by the stings of envy, 
dared not begin the temptation till he saw Jesus fainting with 
hunger, an undoubted sign of human weakness. He well 
knew the attribute of the Godhead to be subject to neither 
temptation nor passion. You ascribe to the Godhead hunger, 
thirst, and similar infirmities, and dare annex the suffering 
of crucifixion thereto. He (the devil), for the magnitude of 
his guilt, was called a murderer from the beginning ; you, in 
the greatness of your mad impiety towards God, call the 
Jews the slayers of God, and do not blush in allowing greater 
power to the Jews, the disciples, than to the devil, the teacher 
of all wickedness ; and thus, according to the accusation of 
the Scripture, knowing God, you have not glorified him as 
God ; for you have maintained his passibility. — (Athanasius's 
Works, vol. ii., p. 305-318, Ed. of Cologne, 1686.) 



THE END. 



VALUABLE THEOLOGICAL WORKS 

RECENTLY PUBLISHED 

BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 

N EW-YORK. 



I. 

THE WORKS OF REV. ROBERT HALL. 

Comprising his Essays, Sermons, Criticisms, and other Miscellanies, U. 
which are Prefixed a Memoir of his Life by Dr. Gregory, and Observa- 
tions on his Character by John Foster, with Additions by Rev. Joseph 
Belcher, D.D. 

First complete Edition. 4 vols, 8vo. Sheep extra. $6 00. 
II. 

COMPLETE WORKS OF REV. WILLIAM JAY. 

From the Author's recent Revised and Enlarged Edition 
3 vols. 8vo. Sheep. $5 00. 

III. 

BARNES'S BIBLICAL NOTES, 

Critical and Practical : including in the Series, the Gospels, the Acts, Epis- 
tles to the Romans, the First and Second to the Corinthians, the Gala- 
tians, the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Hebrews, the Thessaloni- 
ans, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, &c. 9 vols. 12mo. Muslin. 75 
cents each. 

Questions to the above, price 25 cents each. 
IV. 

INTRODUCTION TO CHURCH HISTORY 

Being a new Inquiry into the true Dates of the Birth and Death of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ : including an original Harmony of the 
Gospels, now first arranged in the Order of Time. 

BY REV. S. F. JAR VIS, D.D., LL.D 
1 vol. 8vo. $3 00. 

V. 

LUTHER AND THE LUTHERAN REFORM ATI ON.' 

BY REV. J. SCOTT. 

2 vols. 18mo. $1 00 



2 VALUABLE THEOLOGICAL WORKS. 

VI. 

PERSECUTIONS OF POPERY. 

Being Historical Narratives of the most remarkable Persecutions occasioiud 

by the Intolerance of the Church of Rome. 

BY FREDERIC SHOBERL. 

8vo. 25 cents. 

VII. 

THE EARLY ENGLISH REFORMATION. 

Comprising' the Life of Wiclif. 

BY CHARLES WEBB LE BAS, M.A 

1 vol. 18mo. 50 cents. 

VIII. 

CONSISTENCY OF THE SCHEME OF REVELATION 

With Itself, and with Human Reason. 

BY N. P. SHUTTLEWORTH, D.D. 

1 vol. 18mo. 50 cents. 

IX. 

NEAL'S HISTORY OF THE PURITANS, 

Or Protestant Nonconformists ; from the Reformation in 1517 to the Revo* 

lution in 1688. Edited, with Notes, 

BY REV. J. O. CHOULES, A.M. 

New and enlarged Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. $3 50. 

X. 

HISTORY OF THE REFORMED RELIGION IN FRANCE. 

BY REV. EDWARD SMEDLEY, M.A. 
3 vols. 18mo. $ 1 50. 

XI. 

LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER. 

BY C. WEBB LE BAS, M.A. 
2 vols. 18mo. $1 00. 

XII. 

THE REFORMERS BEFORE THE REFORM ATION. 

John Huss and the Council of Constance, &c. From the French of 

EMILE DE BONNECHOSE. 

8vo. 50 cents 



VALUABLE THEOLOGICAL WORKS. 3 

XIII. 

MOSHEIM'S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

A new and Improved Translation. 

BY REV. JAMES MURDOCK, D.D. 

3 vols. 8vo. Sheep. $7 50. 



,THE SAME WORK, EDITED BY DR. MACLAINE, 

Brought down to 1826. 

BY CHARLES COOTE, LL.D. 

2 vols. 8vo. $3 50. 

XIV. 

LIVES OF THE APOSTLES AND EARLY MARTYRS 

Of the Church. 
1 vol. 18mo. Plates. 25 cents. 

XV. 

M'lLVAINE'S EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, 

In their External or Historical Division. 
1 voL 12mo. Muslin gilt. $1 00. 

XVI. 

KEITH'S DEMONSTRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 

1 vol. 12mo. Numerous Illustrations. $1 38. 
XVII. 

KEITH'S LAND OF ISRAEL, ACCORDING TO THE COVENANT 

With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
1 vol. 12mo. With over 20 fine Engravings. $1 25. 

XVIII. 

THE HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

BY REV. G. R. GLEIG. 
2 vols. 18mo. 80 cents. 

XIX. 

MILMAN'S HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

From the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman 
Empire. 

1 vol. 8vo. Muslin. $1 90. 

MILMAN'S HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 

3 vols. 18mo. Cloth. $1 29. 



4 VALUABLE THEOLOGICAL WORKS. 

XXL 

PRIDEAUX'S CONNEXION 

Of the Old and New Testaments, in the History of the Jews and Neigh- 
bouring Nations, &c. 

2 vols. 8vo. Sheep. $3 75. 
XXII. 

WADDINGTON'S CHURCH HISTORY, 

From the Earliest Ages to the Reformation 
1 vol. 8vo. $1 75. 

XXIII. 

HUNTER'S SACRED BIOGRAPHY, 

Or *ne History of the Patriarchs, of Deborah, Hannah, our Saviour, <fcc. 

1 vol. 8vo. Muslin. $1 75. 

XXIV. 

TURNER'S SACRED HISTORY OF THE WORLD 

Philosoohically Considered, in a Series of Letters, &c. 
3 vols. 18mo. $1 35. 

XXV. 

SAURIN'S SERMONS. 

New and Enlarged Edition of his eloquent Discourses, edited by 
GEORGE BURDER, A.M. 

2 vols. 8vo. Sheep.' $3 75. 

XXVI. 

BROWN'S BIBLE DICTIONARY. 

A Concordance to the Holy Scriptures. 
1 vol. 8vo. Sheep. $1 75. 

XXVII. 

DR. TURNER'S ESSAY 

On our Lord's Discourse at Capernaum, recorded in the otn Chapter of 

John. 
1 vol. 12mo. 75 cents. 

XXVIII. 

ABERCROMBIE'S ESSAYS, 

Comprising the Harmony of Christian Faith and Christian Character, tb« 
Culture and Description of the Man, &c. 

1 vol. 18mo. 50 cents. 



VALUABLE BOOKS OF TRAVEL 

IN PRESS OR JUST PUBLISHED 

BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 



N EW-YORK 



I. 

TRAVELS IN THE EAST. 

BY JOHN P. DURBIN, D.D., 

Author of " Observations in Europe," &c. 

[In press.] 

II. 

THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO. 

With Notes and Illustrations. 

BY HUGH MURRAY, ESQ. 

[In press.] 

III. 

VOYAGES ROUND THE WORLD, 

From the Death of Capt. Cook to the Present Time, &c. 
IV. 

STEPHENS 1 CENTRAL AMERICA. 

Comprising interesting Sketches of the remarkable Ruins of that Country 
2 vols. 8vo. Numerous Plates. 

V. 

STEPHENS' YUCATAN. 

Including copious Details and Illustrations of the Stupendous Architectural 
Relics of the Peninsula. 

2 vols. 8vo. 120 fine Engravings. 
VI. 

DR. FISK'S TRAVELS IN EUROPt. 

England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Switzerland, &c 
With numerous Engraved Illustrations. 



2 VALUABLE BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 

VII. 

HUMBOLDT'S TRAVELS. 

Being ft condensed Narrative of his Explorations in Central America. 

Asiatic Russia, &c. 

1 vol. 18mo. With Cuts. 

VIII. 

ROBERTS' COCHIN-CHINA, SI AM, AC 

An Account of his Embassy to those Courts. 
1 vol. 8vo. 

IX. 

JACOBS' ADVENTURES IN THE PACIFIC. 

Comprising a Narrative of Scenes and Incidents in the Islands of the Aus- 
tralasian Seas, &c. 
1 vol. 12mo. Plates. 

X. 

DR. HUMPHREY'S TOUR 

In Great Britain, France, and Belgium, &c. 
2 vols. 12mo. 

XI. 

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN GREECE, 

fee. 
ESQ. 
2 vols. 12mo. Plates. 

XII. 

STEPHENS' TRAVELS IN EGYPT, 

Arabia Petrae, and the Holy Land. 
2 vols. 12mo. Plates. 

XIII. 

RESEARCHES IN CAFFRARIA. 

Describing the Customs, Character, and Moral Condition of the Tribes 

Inhabiting the Southern Portions of Africa. 

BY STEPHEN KAY. 

12mo. Plates. 

XIV. 

EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 

The Pacific and Indian Oceans Described, &c. 
BY J. N. REYNOLDS. 



VALUABLE BOOKS OP TRAVEL* 3 
XV. 

SANTA FE EXPEDITION. 

Jfarrative of the Texan Santa F6 Expedition, including Description of a 
Tour across the Prairies, &c. 

BY G. W. KENDALL. 

2 vols. 12mo. With Illustrations. 

X7I. 

NEW ORLEANS AS I FOUND IT. 

BY DIDIMUS. 
XVII. 

A PILGRIMAGE TO TREVES, 

Through the Valley of the Meuse and the Forest of Ardennes, in the Yeei 

1844. 

XVIII. 

DR. DURBIN'S OBSERVATIONS IN EUROPE, 

Principally in France and Germany, &c. 
2 vols. 12mo. With fine Plates. 

X IX. 

DR. MOTT'S TRAVELS IN THE EAST. 

1 vol. 8vo. 
XX. 

LETTERS FROM THE /EGEAN. 

BY JAMES EMERSON. 
Ill, 

DE KAY'S TURKEY. 

Containing Sketches of that Country. 
1 vol. 8vo. Plates. 

XXII. 

AMERICAN ADVENTURE 

By Land and Sea, including Remarkable Cases of Enterprise and Fortitude 
BYEPESSARGEAifT. 

XXIII. 

BUCKINGHAM'S AMERICA, 

Historical, Statistical, and Descriptive. 
2 vols. 8vo. Plates. 



4 VALUABLE BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 

XXIV. 

GLORY AND SHAME OF ENGLAND. 

BY C. E. LESTER. 
2 vols. Plates. 

XXV. 

RANDOM SHOTS AN#SOUTHERN BREEZES. 

2 vols. 12mo. 
XXVI. 

MISS SEDGWICK'S LETTERS 

From Abroad to Kindred at Home. 
2 vols. 12mo. 

XXVII. 

MRS. HAIGHT'S LETTERS FROM THE OLD WORLD. 

2 vols. 12mo. 
XXVIII. 

OWEN'S VOYAGES TO THE AFRICAN COAST 

2 vols. 12mo. 
XXIX. 

MUTINY OF THE BOUNTY. 

With a Description of Pitcairn's Island and its Inhabitant!. 
XXX. 

PARRY'S VOYAGES TOTHE POLAR SEAS. 

2 vols. 18mo. 
XXXI. 

LANDERS' TRAVELS TO THE NIGER. 

An Expedition to Trace its Source, with other Discoveries. 
2 vols. 18mo. 

XXXII. 

PYM'S ADVENTURES. 

Comprising Details of a Mutiny in the South Seas, &c. 
1 vol. 12mo. 



3477 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: July 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 478 257 4 



